Mansfield: Region 2 tourney wide open

May 16—From his nine seasons as an assistant to Raydon Leaton at NOC Enid, Scott Mansfield learned the regular season sometimes doesn't mean much in the postseason.

Mansfield saw Leaton lead the Jets to three Region 2 titles (2014, 2018 and 2019) as a No. 3 seed in a six-team tournament.

He will take that history with him in his first postseason as a head coach when the No. 5-seeded Jets (30-22) face No. 4 seed Carl Albert (27-29) at 10 a.m. Sunday at David Allen Memorial Ballpark in a first round game of the Plains District Tournament.

The tournament winner advances to the Division II World Series May 29-June 4/5 at David Allen.

"It's always wide open," Mansfield said. "Anybody in the tournament has a chance to win it if you go out and do what you need to do. It doesn't matter what has happened in the last two months, the team playing at the highest level in all three phases of the game is going to win this thing."

The Jets were 1-3 against the Vikings in a four-game series that ran March 31 and April 2. Two of the losses were by one-run, 7-6 and 4-3. The Vikings won a 20-9 slugfest and NOC Enid's Jaron DeBerry threw a six-hit shutout and struck out seven in a 7-0 Jets win.

"You know it's going to be a dogfight for nine innings," Mansfield said. "It's a brand new season and you need to go out there and learn from both the positive and negative and see what happens."

DeBerry will be on the mound Sunday. He comes in with a 5-1 record and a 4.15 ERA, good for fifth in the Region. He has struck out 65 in 60 2/3 winnings while walking 31.

"He has earned the right to toe the rubber in Day 1 to get us a Day 1 win," Mansfield said.

The Jets are coming into the tournament with a .328 team batting average. Enid native Ambren Voitik was the Region's regular season batting champion with a .418 average.

The Jets also have the Region's No. 2 (Calyn Halvorson, 68) and No. 5 (Tanner Holliman, 52) RBI leaders and the No. 3 (Halvorson, 17) and No. 4 (Voitik, 16) home run hitters. Holliman and Jordan Coffey (15) are right behind. Cale Savage is hitting .380 with seven homers and 36 RBI.

NOC Enid came back from an 8-0 deficit in the second inning in a wild 16-15 victory over Redlands in the last regular season series.

"We can put up a bunch of runs on the board," Mansfield said. "Our offense compares to anybody in this region. We're always in the game at some point. We are lucky enough to have a good group of guys who are good hitters. We adapted that belief in the weight room and our philosophy at the plate and it comes down to a good overall season."

Wyatt Sellers, one of four pitching starters all season, skipped his last start against Redlands for precautionary reasons. Mansfield said "he's healthy and ready to go."

NOC Enid comes into the tournament having won six of its last eight, taking three out of four against both NOC Tonkawa and Redlands.

"I think our guys are in a good position to win," Mansfield said.

Carl Albert lost three out of four against top-seeded Western in its final series but took three out of four against UA-Rich Mountain the series before.

The Vikings are led by the trio of Mac Moody (16 homers, 46 RBI); Dylan DeButty (10 homers, 45 RBI, .269); and Breck Burris (.333, 5 homers, 42 RBI).

Alex Gonzalez was the winning pitcher in the 4-3 win over the Jets, allowing eight hits over seven innings with five strikeouts and one walk. He is second in ERA in Region 2 with a 3.26. Rich Lowry is fourth in strikeouts with 72.

The Jets are both the defending Region and Division II World Series champions, but thanks to COVID-19, only a few players have playoff experience after last year's season was all but wiped out.

"You have eight teams that are in the same boat," Mansfield said. "This is a new experience for everyone. The team that adapts to that environment the quickest will win.

"This is a totally different group of guys, but we are the defending Region 2 champion until somebody takes it away from us. We're acting like we won it last year even though we didn't get a chance to defend it."

Mansfield said playing on NOC Enid's home field will be an advantage being able to sleep in its dorm rooms instead of a hotel.

Mansfield has gotten his players up early the last week to adjust to the 10 a.m. starting time.

"It's just adapting to an early BP time," Mansfield said. "You just have to flip that mental switch."

The NOC Enid-Carl Albert winner will play the winner of the 1 p.m. game between Murray State (29-25) and National Park College (23-28) at 4 p.m. Monday. The losers play an elimination game at 10 a.m.

Murray State took three out of four games from National Park in its series, including two shutouts — 4-0 and 6-0. Tristen Jamison of National Park leads the Region in both homers (21) and RBI (67) after hitting two homers in a 10-8 win over Hesston in the feed-in game. Teammate Demias Jimerson has 19 homers.

Murray State's Chase Keeton is fourth in RBI with 57.

Other first round games pit:

Western (35-11) vs. NOC Tonkawa (31-25), 7 p.m. — WOC swept the season series outscoring the Mavericks 43-13. The top-seeded Pioneers have the Region's No. 2 hitter (Adonys Herrera .400), but are noted for their pitching, being No. 1 in ERA (Juan Pimentel, 1.74; Carter Campbell, 3.69; and Jose Torrealba, 3.84) and strikeouts (Torrealba, 89; Pimentel 83; and Campbell 68).

Tonkawa is coming off a 9-6 win over Redlands in the feed-in game.

— The two teams didn't play in the regular season with North Central not being a part of Region 2. They are the only Division II team in Missouri, and have been a part of the Plains District. UA-Rich Mountain, in the Region 2 tourney for the first time, is led by Dan Taylor, who has 61 RBI, third best in Region 2, and Maddox Long, who is third in strikeouts with 74.

The 4 p.m. and 7 p.m. winners play at 7 p.m. Monday. The losers meet at 1 p.m. in an elimination game.

The tournament's championship round is set to begin at 6 p.m. Wednesday. If a second final is needed, it will go at 3 p.m. Thursday.

Campbell is a former sports writer and current part-time writer for the News & Eagle, enidnews@enidnews.com.

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