Golloway Announces 2007 Class

November 16th, 2005

Courtesy: SoonerSports.com

NORMAN, Okla. — Oklahoma baseball head coach Sunny Golloway announced the signing of 11 baseball players for the 2007 season to national letters of intent on Tuesday. The class, Golloway’s first as the head coach at OU, features seven athletes that come from the high school ranks and four others from the junior college level.

The Sooners once again brought in talented prospects from the state of Oklahoma with four of the area’s top recruits. Golloway also signed two student-athletes from California, two from Arizona and one player each from Texas, Illinois and British Columbia.

In the two previous seasons, OU’s recruiting classes, under then-associate coach Sunny Golloway, were ranked among the top 10 in the nation and this year’s class appears to be headed in the same direction.

“We are extremely pleased and excited about the potential of the 2007 class,” said Golloway. “We feel we have filled the immediate needs for next year’s team along with adding depth to key positions. This incoming class ranks right up there, if not higher, with the previous two groups and that bodes well for the future of our program.

“I would also like to recognize the outstanding efforts of our recruiting coordinator, Tim Tadlock, and assistant coach Fred Corral for signing such a talented incoming class. Many hours of work go into each signing in order to assure that we have landed the best student-athletes to represent the University of Oklahoma and the future of the Sooner baseball program.”

A bulk of the class features six pitchers and they are right-handers Andrew Doyle (Rock Island, Ill./Alleman HS), Chad Lee (Oklahoma City/Barton County Community College), Garrett Richards (Edmond, Okla./Edmond Memorial HS) and Tyson Seng (Enid, Okla./Enid HS) and left-handers Tanner Chitwood (Sulphur, Okla./Sulphur HS) and Brandon Thomson (Gilbert, Ariz./Chandler Gilbert Community College).

Seng, who is also a talented defender, will be joined in the infield by three players including Bryant Hernandez (Oxnard, Calif./St. Bonaventure HS), Mike Gosse (British Columbia/New Mexico Junior College) and Vincent Biancamano (Glendale, Ariz./Chandler Gilbert Community College/Arizona State).

Aaron Baker (Denton, Texas/Denton HS) is the only catcher on the list and Devin Shepherd (Agoura Hills, Calif./Oxnard HS) concludes the 2007 class as the lone outfielder.

Five of the Sooners’ signees (Baker, Chitwood, Doyle, Seng and Shepherd) have appeared in the Baseball America/Perfect Game USA Prospects Plus National Top 300 in the past two years.

Shepherd, ranked No. 16 on this year’s list by Baseball America/Perfect Game, garnered the most valuable honors at the Third Annual Aflac All-American High School Baseball Classic in August. The California native (6-4, 230) is the second highest ranked player at his position on Baseball America’s list.

Seng also appears on this year’s list at No. 212. The Enid, Okla., native is a multi-sport star that had potential not only to play baseball in the college ranks but also in the sport of basketball. Seng batted .407 last season and held down a 0.64 ERA and was the second-leading scorer in Class 6A basketball in the state.

“There is no doubt that this is a very talented group of athletes,” added Golloway. “The coaching staff knows that the 2007 class has the potential to lose multiple players to the draft (MLB) in June, but when you go after players that professional teams also seek, that provides your program with the talent necessary to achieve the goal of winning championships.”

The Sooners went 35-26 in 2005 and made the program’s second consecutive NCAA regional appearance, a first since the 1997-98 seasons, after putting together a successful run at the end of the regular season with a 10-2 mark.

Entry Filed under: Oklahoma Sports