Gator bait! Chomp! Chomp! Gator bait! Chomp! Chomp!

1-2-3 Gators!

••• At about 4 p.m. Thursday, the Okarche Lady Warriors will do something that hasn’t been accomplished there in nearly four decades when they play in the state softball tournament.

A full day before that happens, the Kingfisher Lady Jackets will make history when they take part in a super regional, a feat the program’s never accomplished before this season.

It takes talent to do what those two teams have achieved this season and the talent isn’t grown overnight.

In fact, it takes years.

Years of hard work. Years of coaching. Years of nurturing. Years of lessons. Years of games. Years of traveling. For several players on the Kingfisher and Okarche teams - and beyond - some of those years were spent together.

In 2018, Brandon Friesen coached a team that included current KHS standouts Adlee Friesen (his daughter), Kinlee East, Liliana Garramone and Kendall Farrar.

Joining them was Okarche’s Lawson Geheb.

The group had a ton of success playing in a 10-and-under fall league at D-Bat in Oklahoma City.

“They were a fun group that, at that time, you could tell had a lot of softball potential,” Friesen said.

“You could tell if they kept the love and passion for the game, they all had a chance to be really successful.”

Farrar, Friesen, Garramone and East have all earned all-district honors for KHS and are among the team’s leaders in nearly every statistical category.

Geheb, meanwhile, is putting up eye-popping numbers at Okarche, whether she’s hurling a pitch toward the plate or sending a pitch over a wall.

Not all the players on that team stuck with softball and not all of them are still in Kingfisher County.

Kinley Taylor, a member of that 2018 team who started at KHS her freshman season, is now a part of the Washington Lady Warriors, the top-ranked team in Class 3A.

Those who are still in Kingfisher and still playing have taken the program to new heights.

“Watching Adlee and all the Kingfisher girls just grow every single year since that time has been fun,” said the elder Friesen. “Not only have they grown as softball players, but they are all just awesome kids to be around.

“And Lawson is having an incredible season at the plate and in the circle, but it’s not surprising because I know the time and effort she puts into it and the years of hard work she has put in.”

That hard work continued right into the next year when Geheb played with yet more members of the current KHS team as well as some of her Lady Warrior teammates.

It included Geheb and Katie Parham from Okarche.

From Kingfisher were Farrar, Lily Voth and Callie Blair.

The team even included Kate Nabavi, one of Cashion’s best players, and Maeli Turner, who recently helped lead Dover to a Class B regional.

It also included Riley Voth, a former Dover player now a senior at Pioneer- Pleasant Vale, which just qualified for state; Addy Brueggen, a standout junior at Piedmont who has her team hosting a Class 6A regional this week; and Addison Gorton, the ace who also has led Drummond to state.

Helping coach the team were the likes of Barry Geheb, Joe Voth, David Blair, Pete Voth, Josh Farrar and Liz Nabavi.

They were called the Gators and they had their own breakout chant: Gator bait! Chomp! Chomp! Gator bait!

Chomp! Chomp! 1-2-3 Gators!

“That’s what really comes to mind when I think of that team,” said Lily Voth with a smile.

A lot of teams became Gator bait as the group won a USSSA 10U fall state championship in 2019.

“My favorite memory was our Gator chant and winning the fall state championship in the freezing cold,” Geheb said.

She also realizes that irons sharpens iron.

“Playing with those girls got me to a higher level of play,” said Geheb. “Lily and I pushed ourselves pitching in the circle.”

Since those days, several of the players now compete on different travel teams.

They even face off against one another.

All the girls, they say, keep up with one another and root for each other’s successes.

“Lawson and I still talk a lot,” Voth said. “And we play each other all the time during travel ball. We’re both wanting to go to school for softball, so we talk a lot about the recruiting and what-not.”

Voth said she’s friends with and has played softball and/or basketball with not only Geheb, but also Parham, Avery Treece, Emma Roby, Kenzie Harper and more.

“I literally know all the Okarche girls and we’re all friends,” she said.

Geheb, like the others, uses social media to keep up, but will also see her former 10U teammates at travel ball tournaments.

“We give each other a hug and tell them good luck,” she said.

They even face off in school ball - Okarche (and Geheb) have played Cashion (and Nabavi) multiple times each year.

“Kate and I give each other the nod when she’s at the plate and I’m pitching,” Geheb said.

All have had their successes. Several have lifted their programs to different levels.

They went from big dreams to the big time.

But first, they did it together.

“It has been awesome just watching all of them be successful and contribute at a high level in both their high school and travel ball teams,” Friesen said.