19th Street Magazine May 21

Westmoore Baseball has always had a certain shade of crimson and cream attached to it. From its head coach to its numerous Sooner alums that played for the Jaguars, the Oklahoma Sooner Baseball program has been engrained within the Westmoore Jaguar program.

This season, Sooner Baseball has been injected with more of a red and black tint as Westmoore alums are making an impact on the diamond for the Sooners. Between senior shortstop Brandon Zaragoza, redshirt freshman Braxton Bohrofen and his true freshman brother Jace Bohrofen, on any given night, a handful of former Jaguars players can find themselves in the starting lineup for Skip Johnson.

“Westmoore has some really strong talented players… and things just aligned the way that they did,” Sooner Shortstop and Westmoore alum Brandon Zaragoza said. “It was one of those things where we had a couple of guys come to Oklahoma and we were looking at it as... well who’s going to be next? The next thing you know we’re all in college together and Westmoore is taking over.”

Zaragoza has been a cornerstone for the Sooners defensively. During his freshman campaign, he started 56 games at shortstop

and has started every single game since. Zaragoza has also become the all-time leader in games played for Sooner baseball and is widely regarded as one of the best defensive shortstops in college baseball.

“If he hit .100, that’s all that matters to me, because I know if it’s hit to him, you’re going to get out,” Sooners coach Skip Johnson said. “That’s what kind of defender he is.”

His high school coaches knew just how special Zaragoza was early in his high school career at Westmoore. Sooner Alum Jarod Freeman was the head baseball coach at Westmoore during the first three seasons of Zaragoza’s high school career.

“At the end of his freshman year, he started coming up with the varsity group and we really got to see him start to shine for us,” Freeman said. “Going into his sophomore year, it was incredible the plays that he was making. It was Omar Vizquel-esqe some of the plays he could make. He’s doing skate park tricks at shortstop and he’s a sophomore in high school.”

But it was more than just the eye of his high school coach that Zaragoza was catching. When a college coach came to town to look at some of the pitchers on the Westmoore staff, his attention shifted to the wiry shortstop.

“Your shortstop has that extra 15 feet… that zip on his ball,” Freeman recalled the coach saying. “(He had) a kid playing shortstop and he might be the top players around from Canada, and your sophomore shortstop has more than he does.

“All I could do was nod, agree and magnify how fun he was to coach. His work ethic is special. He could go as high as he wants defensively.”

After Freeman moved on from coaching, prior to Zaragoza’s senior season at Westmoore, Joe Patterson took over and was immediately drawn to the ability of his then senior shortstop to lead.

“He was simply different,” Patterson said. “There are always some of those guys that approach the game differently. The day I knew he was special he came up to me and Joe Moore, our infield coach, and said ‘I want to have a team meeting.’ We asked what for and he just wanted to cover some infield assignments and we gave him the green light.

“He brought the whole team in the locker room and got on the white board and went over how to control the running game and second base and did it all perfectly. Coach Moore and I were in awe... that is just the type of guy that he was for us and that he is at Oklahoma.”

While Zaragoza has always been known for his defense, his work in the batter’s box has consistently improved over his time at Oklahoma. His batting average has steadily improved and his RBI numbers have increased every single season.

But one accomplishment had proven unattainable for Zaragoza. Heading into his senior season, he had yet to hit a collegiate home run.

But that changed on a spring Sunday afternoon in Norman. With the Sooners leading Houston, 7-2, in the bottom of the

5th inning, Zaragoza stepped to the plate and crushed the first pitch he saw over the left center field wall.

“It was a pretty cool moment,” Zaragoza said. “The reason it was so cool was the reaction of my teammates, the team rallied around me when it happened. I think that’s what made the moment so special. I truly saw the character we have in that locker room… The way they reacted… the love that we have for each other is what makes those moments so special.”

Zaragoza was mobbed as he returned to the dugout. His former teammate Blake Brewster was on the TV call that afternoon and celebrated like he was right in the mob outside the Sooner dugout. Parents hugged, yardbirds cheered and Zaragoza gave a curtain call.

“I know how hard that kid always wanted to hit a home run,” Freeman said. “You’ve got that whole extra year of baseball that he got and now gets that big one out of the way. He’s one of those guys always trying to get bigger and stronger. To see that weight room pay off for him is really special.”

“I saw it all over Twitter,” Patterson said. “My phone blew up and everyone was talking about it after it happened. I saw the letter that a fan wrote, and I thought that was really cool. If you’re great, you’re doing great things, but can you make the people around you better? You can tell by the reaction to his home run, even the fans, he’s made everyone around him better.”

While the moment was big for Zaragoza, it was made even bigger by his teammate’s reaction. Two of the first guys out of the dugout were Jace and Braxton Bohrofen. Braxton and Zaragoza had been teammates at Westmoore and went to a state championship game together.

But with Braxton being younger, Zaragoza had never had the opportunity to play on the same team as the younger

Bohrofen. In fact, Jace had been one of Zaragoza’s biggest fans, watching him play at Oklahoma while he was coming up through the ranks at Westmoore. It only made sense that when Braxton became a Sooner, Zaragoza would take him under his wing.

“It’s a pretty cool moment. He’s like a younger brother to me,” Zaragoza said of fellow Westmore alum Jace Bohrofen joining the Sooners. “A soon as he walked in the locker room, I just took him under my wing because I see the potential. I’ve been in college for 35 years now, so I feel like I have a little knowledge I’d like to spread to him. But it’s more taking him in as a person not so much a ballplayer. It’s a really cool opportunity to have a guy like that on our team and understanding that the future of this program is in really good hands.”

Jace was a top 100 prospect and there was a chance that if the MLB Draft fell for him the right way he might not even play for the Sooners. But when COVID hit and shortened the MLB Draft from 40 rounds to five, Jace ended up at Oklahoma and was able to learn from one of his idols and follow in his father’s footsteps.

Brent Bohrofen was a standout for the Sooners from 1989-91.

“Both Bohrofens are exceptional kids. They are great leaders,” Patterson said. “Jace is a tremendous player. One of the most highly skilled high school hitters I’ve ever been around. Pretty much me coaching Jace about hitting was writing his name on the lineup card and telling him to go out and get it done and that worked out really well for three years.”

Jace joined his brother Braxton who had already spent two seasons with the Sooners. Braxton had an incredible amount of high school success at Westmoore including helping propel the 2018 team to the State Championship game.

“Braxton was a field general and did everything you needed to do,” Patterson said. “The best thing about Braxton was you could tell him to make sure everyone knows what to do on a bunt situation or a 1st and 3rd and he would take care of it. Braxton’s senior year, we had a pitcher come in that was our number two starter and he said he was moving to Houston two days before the season started. Braxton stepped up, picked up the slack and pitched, and went 9-1 on the mound

as our number two starter. He even pitched and beat Owasso in the semi-finals.”

With three Westmoore Jaguars on the Sooner roster, it brings a sense of pride to the entire Westmoore baseball family, especially the former coaches of the Bohrofen’s and Zaragoza.

“I think it says a lot for Westmoore High School in the development,” Freeman said. “Obviously knowing Brent (Bohrofen) and the kind of dad he is to Jace and Braxton, it’s cool that you’d get to watch your two sons play at OU. I’ve got two boys and one boy on the way and I just think how cool it would be as a dad to watch those players play where you did and especially at the level those two are.”

“It’s great to watch them and sometimes you feel like you’re playing with them when you’re watching on TV,” Patterson added. “You stand up when they’re hitting and you’re yelling at the TV.”

At the core of all the success was a start and that beginning was at Westmoore.

“They molded me into the person I am today,” Zaragoza said of his time at Westmoore. “It is just really awesome to see both of my high school coaches that gave me valuable lessons in the game of baseball and the game of life. I enjoyed every moment I got to play with those guys.

“High school baseball was a special time in my life. Sometimes I reflect on it … and I’ll reflect on how (Westmoore) helped build me into the person I am today.”

As the Oklahoma Sooner prepares for a run at the postseason, the three former Westmoore players will play a major role. If Oklahoma is going to make a run to Omaha in 2021, lessons learned on the field at Westmoore High School will be a major reason why they are able to take the next step.

“It speaks volumes about Westmoore and the program that keeps developing talent,” Freeman added. “Skip and the staff at OU are top notch in how they handle players and how they handle high school coaches throughout the state. It’s where people want to go. When you have people like that running the program, there is no problem with any high school coach wanting to send his players to play for a guy like that.” –19SM