After one of the more painful losses a team can experience, three different locations and hundreds of miles, the Okarche Warriors played themselves back into the Class A state baseball tournament.

The 13th-ranked and defending state champion Warriors got a pair of pitching gems on Saturday as they downed No. 12 Hydro-Eakly 4-0 and No. 5 Arapaho-Butler 6-1 to claim the consolation championship of their regional tournament.

Those two games were supposed to be played at Wright City, the school that earned the right to host the regional, but never did due to rainouts on Thursday and Friday.

They were also supposed to be played at Kingston, where the first day of the regional took place on Friday, but couldn’t on Saturday.

So, the three schools from western Oklahoma headed back this direction and finished up the regional in Okarche and delivered the last out just before 10 p.m. Saturday.

When it was over, it was the Warriors - the lowest-ranked team in the regional - celebrating.

Now Okarche is in the fall state tournament for the 10th time in program history, including fourth in a row.

It was a promising, but painful start for Okarche on Friday when the Warriors took No. 4 Wright City to the wire in the regional opener.

Three different Okarche pitchers combined for a no-hitter entering the seventh inning.

But the no-hitter, the shutout and the potential win were dashed in one swing of the bat by Kash Collins, who led off that inning with a home run to walk off the win for the Lumber Jax.

They went on to beat Arapaho-Butler 9-8 on Friday night to win the regional and punch their ticket to state.

That left three teams - Hydro-Eakly, Arapaho- Butler and the Warriors - left to duke it out for the final spot on Saturday.

When all the teams made it back to Okarche to resume the regional Saturday, the Warriors got a shutout performance by Grady Terrell to help them stay in contention.

He scattered seven hits and survived three Okarche errors over the seven innings. He helped his cause by striking out seven and only walking one batter.

Jake Henderson’s tworun home run in the first inning was all the run support Terrell needed, but he got a little more.

Cooper Anderson made it a three-run first with his RBI single and then Jag Mueggenborg drove in a run in the second.

Terrell took care of the rest. The Bobcats loaded the bases in both the third and seventh innings, but couldn’t crack Terrell.

That pitted Okarche against Arapaho-Butler in the nightcap.

The two teams had played twice this season with the Indians winning 10-0 on Aug. 29 and Okarche earning a 12-6 victory on Sept. 15.

The Indians scratched together a run in the top of the first inning off Okarche starter Jett Yost, but that proved to be all they’d get.

Yost gave up one hit in that inning, but only one more the rest of the game. He struck out three batters and worked around three walks.

The Warriors took the lead in the bottom of that first inning.

Mueggenborg walked and Yost doubled to set up a two-run single by Tucker White.

The score stayed 2-1 for much of the rest of the game as Yost and Arapaho’s Kaden Waldrop dueled it out.

Yost had more staying power.

The Warriors finally got to Waldrop for more runs in the sixth.

They loaded the bases with nobody out and Yost got an RBI when he walked home a run.

White followed with a sacrifice fly for a 4-1 lead and Anderson made it 5-1 with an RBI when he reached on an error.

Court Sumrall bunted into a fielder’s choice, which led to yet another run and suddenly the game was out of reach for the Indians.

Saturday’s wins pushed Okarche’s record to 15-14.

When Okarche lost to Drummond on Sept. 8, it was the Warriors’ fifth straight and they were staring at a 5-11 record.

Since then, they’ve gone 10-3.

The losses were to Fort Cobb and Calumet, two Class B state tournament teams, and the Lumber Jax.

All 10 of the wins were against ranked teams.

The Warriors won both the fall 2025 and spring 2026 state championships last season.

Henderson was the only starter in the lineup on Saturday night who also started last spring’s state title win over Dewar.

The road to another title won’t be easy.

Okarche will play No. 1 Rattan at 11 a.m. Thursday in the quarterfinal round at Shawnee High School.

The winner will play the winner of the quarterfinal matchup between No. 3 Canute and No. 15 Battiest/ Stuart at noon Friday in Shawnee.

The finals are 2 p.m. Saturday at Chickasaw Bricktown Ballpark.