TOP LOCAL SPORTS STORY COUNTDOWN: NUMBERS 5-1
Bartlesville High School head coach Tommy DeSalme talks to a player on the bench during an earlier season game. DeSalme, a former Bruin , came home to coach the basketball team and is Bartlesville Area Sports No. 1 top story of 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
Bartlesville High School’s freshman Michael Kent hands off the ball to Sutton Williams last season. Despite a rough start to the season, the Bruins made it to the Class 6A playoffs. This is Bartlesville Area Sports’ No. 2 story of 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
BY MIKE TUPA
January 28, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS
Following is our website countdown for the top 30 local sports stories for 2024.
This article comprises No. 5-1.
5: BRUIN FRESHMAN TOUCHES THE CLOUDS
Wesley Turner catapulted himself to a state championship— and the Bartlesville High record books — with one single bound at the Class 6A finals May 10-11, at Western Heights High School.
Turner soared to the pole vault gold medal with a height of 15-feet-6-inches — the best mark ever by a Bruin freshman.
The five finishers behind him were four seniors and one junior.
Wesley is the newest Turner standout for the Bartlesville track program. Older sister Quincey set the girls’ school record in the pole vault and won a state medal and older sister Gentry Turner was a track gold medalist (girls 3200m) last spring, as well as an All-State girls cross country runner.
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Jakob Hall, former Bartlesville Bruin and Doenges Ford Indian, was drafted by the Minnesota Twins and is Bartlesville Area Sports’ No. 4 story 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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4: CAUGHT IN THE DRAFT
Growing up from a little tot in the Bartlesville baseball realm, Jakob Hall always seemed to have something special, something extra.
He played a vital role in United Linen’s championship runs in the Bartlesville Area Amateur Baseball 14-and-under league and then rose to heights of excellence as a stalwart on the Bartlesville High and Bartlesville American Legion teams.
During the latter part of those years, there was no one better on the mound, in the field or at the plate than Hall for those squads.
Toward the end of his teenage playing days, Oral Roberts University brought him on board.
For three years seasons the right-handed hurling Hall helped lift the Golden Eagles to mighty tall currents in the lofty expanse of sky-high success.
His final career stats included a 20-6 winning record, 232 innings, 239 strikeouts, only 47 walks, a 4.15 earned run average, only nine wild pitches, an opposing batting average of .253, zero balks and other impressive mound stats.
Considering ORU used the 6-foot-2, 175-pound Hall as its No. 1 starter (Friday starter in conference weekend series’), he faced fresh batters and dueled head-to-head against other team’s top throwers.
As a sophomore (2023) he ranked 16th in the nation in strikeout-to-walk ratio (5.53), and 18th for fewest walks averaged in nine innings (1.55).
Hall’s sophomore season turned out to be a historic season for ORU — a 52-14 record (23-1 in the Summit League) and a spot in the College World Series for the first time in 50-something years. At one stretch, ORU rolled to 21-straight wins and posted a 24-3 mark in its final 27 games.
Hall drew the Game One start at the CWS, lasting five innings against TCU while giving up four hits, two runs, two walks and striking out three. ORU led when he came out in favor of a reliever, 2-1. The Golden Eagles won, 6-5, but the ORU closer (Cade Denton) received credit for the win.
During Hall’s junior season (2024), ORU suffered a major reverse, sliding from 52 wins the previous campaign to 27. But Hall’s numbers improved or in many categories — an 8-3 record, 3.56 ERA, 98.2 innings, 94 strikeouts, 17 walks and a .251 opposing batting average.
But the biggest news of Hall’s year happened on July 15 when the Minnesota Twins selected him in the eighth room of the 2024 MLB Draft.
Hall became the second former Bruin in less than a decade to be drafted — the Baltimore Orioles picked righthanded-pitcher James Teague in the 37th round of the 2016 draft.
Teague played in the minors — with some good success, including being named to an All-Star team — for three seasons prior to retiring in January 2019.
Hall has the opportunity to be the first former Bartlesville Bruin since Tim Pugh in the 1990s to play in the Major Leagues.
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Bartlesville High School swimming coach Chad Englehart led the program to a state championship and is Bartlesville Area Sports’ No. 3 story of 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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3: POWER PLAY IN THE POOL
For the seventh time in 10 years Bartlesville High School’s swim program brought home a state championship.
In 2024, it was the girls’ team that ruled the state — the Lady Bruins’ sixth state title since Chad Englehart became head coach in 2014.
(Englehart guided the boys’ team to state supremacy in 2018).
Sophomore Addison Howze and freshman Anna Young both won four state titles to lead the tidal wave of success.
Bartlesville swept all three relay crowns (200 medley, 200 freestyle, 400 freestyle).
At the conclusion of the final event — hosted by Jenks High School — Bartlesville had compiled 405.5 points, swamping runner-up Jenks (300) by more than 100 points.
Adding a layer of sweetness to Bartlesville High’s swim meet weekend?
The Bruins finished second in the boys’ division.
Gold medal winners at state in 2024 for the Lady Bruins included:
— Addison Howze (200 I.M., 100 back, 200 medley relay, 400 free relay).
— Anna Young (200 free, 500 free, 200 free relay, 400 free relay).
— Ashlynn Taylor (200 medley relay, 400 free relay).
— Calli Richards (200 medley relay, 200 free relay).
— Tristin Weaver (200 medley relay, 200 free relay).
— Emma Howze (200 free relay, 400 free relay).
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Bartlesville High School’s Damien Niko looks for running room during an earlier season game. Despite a rough start to the season, the Bruins made it to the Class 6A playoffs. This is Bartlesville Area Sports’ No. 2 story of 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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2: BRUIN FOOTBALL EXPERIENCED DIZZYING RIDE
Easier to try to describe the taste of mustard than it is to characterize the 2024 Bartlesville High School football season.
Was it a success?
Well, the team did win its last three games — in dominating fashion in order to squeeze into the playoffs.
Was it a failure?
The Bruins started the season at 0-7 — including some disappointing should-have-won setbacks.
Was it controversial?
Seven games into the season several players — including senior starters — left the team either voluntarily or not, depending on how one interprets the bit of information that surfaced. As a result Bartlesville turned to a freshman as its new starting quarterback and other freshmen or second-stringers to fill key roles.
Was it business as usual?
Well, the team made the playoffs for the third-straight year with Harry Wright as head coach — a history-making feat. (Prior to last season, Bartlesville had never entered the postseason more than two seasons in a row.)
The first three-quarters of the campaign resembled the Titanic sinking in slow motion.
It was an agonizing ordeal — a 35-33 loss to Claremore in game two, a 37-23 defeat in game three at the hands of Collinsville, an overtime loss at home in a game to Sapulpa, 35-28, a blown-out-sight-humiliation in game six to Muskogee, 55-0.
It all came to a head after game seven — a 23-0 shortfall against a beatable Putnam City North — Bartlesville first back-to-back shutout losses since 2021.
Toward the end of the PC North debacle, Wright inserted freshman Michael Kent at quarterback for an uneventful but provocative preview.
An unhappy exodus of players occurred within days after the loss to PC North.
Going into the game eight showdown against Ponca City, Kent had been elevated to starting signal caller duties as part of a major lineup shake-up.
Whether it was the seismic changes or the weaker part of the schedule — or a bit of both — the Bruins then caught fire.
During the final three regular season games they knocked off Ponca City, 30-20, pounded Putnam City West, 40-9, and zapped Capitol Hall, 62-0.
Those wins were more than enough to catapult Bartlesville into the Class 6A-II playoffs. But they had a short stay, falling in the first round to Putnam City, 26-14.
A few Bruin season highlights:
— In three-plus games at quarterback, Kent completed 36-of-53 passes (.679) for 493 yards, seven touchdowns and only one interception.
— Senior receiver Damien Niko hauled in 55 receptions for nearly 850 yards and 10 touchdowns.
— Junior running back Sutton Williams accounted for nearly 700 yards of total offense, including six rushing touchdowns.
— Freshman Daeton Stevens averaged more than four yards per carry and rushed for three scores and caught a touchdown.
— On the defensive side sophomore lineman Davin Carter wreaked all kinds of havoc on opposing offenses, particularly during the winning stretch run; Archer Swisher also made a powerful impact at linebacker.
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Former Bartlesville Bruin player, Tommy DeSalme, came back home to head the boys basketball program and is Bartlesville Area Sports’ No. 1 story of 2024.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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1: TOMMY DESALME COMES HOME
During its first 42 seasons, Bartlesville High School boys basketball enjoyed an unbroken string of six outstanding head coaches, starting with Ken Bruno (1982-84), followed by Dee Ketchum (1984-84), Steve Hesser (1985-1992), Wes Brown (1992-2000), Tim Bart (2000-2014) and Clent Stewart (2014-2024).
The start of the Bruins’ seventh coaching era draws parallels to the Charles Dickens classic tale “A Christmas Carol.”
New sideline skipper Tommy DeSalme represents all three time elements that fuel tradition — The Ghost of Bruin Basketball Glories Past, the Ghost of Bruin Basketball Shortcomings Present and the Ghost of Bruin Potential Future.
During his playing days in the late 1980s/early 1990s for Bartlesville, DeSalme helped lead the Bruins to two state championships, representing what many refer to as Bartlesville's basketball golden era.
Following high school, DeSalme put together a successful college career as a player, an assistant coach and a head coach. During several coaching stops the past 20-plus years, DeSalme guided every four-year or junior college team he led to stunning success.
But when the Bartlesville job came open in late winter of 2024, DeSalme stepped away from the college realm — where his coaching career was on the ascendency — to come home and try to elevate a struggling Bruin program facing dire challenges to become a competitive Class 6A program again. There were no easy answers.
DeSalme’s hiring received immediate and complete community approbation and applause. His return injected a new wave of excitement and optimism into the Christmases yet to come for Bruin hoops.
In late November, the Bruins won DeSalme’s debut game as head coach. But following that the reality of the Bruins’ deficiencies — including the lack of a real big man or two, inexperience (DeSalme started or utilized several freshmen), uneven backcourt play and four-quarter quality play — defined the team through the end of December.
But the future still appears promising with DeSalme at the helm. The glow of his hiring persists.