Bowman field features city teams, area clubs

There will be a distinct big school-small school atmosphere at the 2024 Bo Bowman Invitational which opens Thursday with games at all three of the Lawton Public Schools baseball fields that have undergone major changes since last season.

The fields are now artificial turf with new dugouts and other upgrades as well.

Games will begin at noon Thursday at Lawton High, Eisenhower and MacArthur featuring the host schools.

The schedule at LHS has the Wolverines meeting Shawnee at noon, then a meeting of Shawnee and Altus at 2:30 followed by the Altus-LHS contest around 5 p.m.

Ike will open at noon against Big Pasture and the 2:30 game at Ike matches BP and Apache, then Ike returns to the field at 5 p.m. to face Apache.

MacArthur gets started at noon against Fletcher, then Cache and Fletcher battle at 2:30 p.m. The final game at Mac features the Highanders and Cache at 5 p.m.

After Wednesday’s games the pools will be seeded by record, head-to-head games, runs scored, runs allowed and if none of those separates the teams, they will have a coin toss.

The field appears wide open with most of the teams around the .500 mark this season but Mac has played a tough schedule and that could benefit Rodney DeLong’s club.

Fletcher and Big Pasture have both played more games and both among the better small-school programs and the Rangers come in ranked No. 19 in the state’s smallest class.

However, Fletcher has already beaten BP, 3-2, early in the season and the Wildcats have already beaten LHS twice this season, 15-2 and 9-1.