Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Farmington’s Oakley Sisemore Verbally Commits To Play For Lady Razorbacks
Sisemore Verbally Commits To Lady Razorbacks
FARMINGTON — The typical high school student/athlete handling college recruiters knows certain things are expected but Oakley Sisemore, of Farmington, has some high expectations of her own.
John Sisemore, her dad, is head coach of the Ecclesia College women’s softball team, and said he would have loved to have her come and play for him but her dream has always been to play Division I NCAA.
Oakley said she has made a verbal commitment to the University of Arkansas women’s softball program at the beginning of the summer and plans on signing a national letter of intent in November.
“I’ve been excited for a long time. They’re a really good program. They have a great coaching staff. I verbally committed a couple of weeks ago when I went to a camp there and it looks really promising. They are probably one of the best coaching staffs in the SEC.”
Mike Larabee, Arkansas head softball coach, said he couldn’t comment on the matter but did confirm the Razorbacks were interested in recruiting Oakley.
John Sisemore doesn’t feel slighted at all.
“Her dream has always been to play at the highest level and to be a Razorback and she wants to win a national championship at the highest level. She thinks Coach Larabee is going to bring that to Arkansas in the next few years and she wants to be a part of that.”
Oakley has played softball since she was little but her desire to play college softball began in her eighth grade year when her dad was an assistant coach for Arkansas and she started going to Razorback games and witnessing the influence they have over a lot of people.
“They’re good role models,” Oakley said.
John and Oakley are very close and their relationship has been forged around building her game. Oakley said they have been working out ever since John started coaching and they had access to an indoor facility.
“We would go every night – constantly fielding or hitting,” Oakley said.
“It’s been a work in progress. It didn’t come naturally to her,” John said. “She’s a hard working kid. She had to work to earn everything she’s got. She didn’t start for the first two years she played. I was coaching, she was sitting on the bench, it was pretty frustrating.”
John attributes Oakley’s emergence
as a hitter, who can regularly get on base along with good tracking skills in the outfield to her work ethic.
“She’s spent many hours while other kids were off to the mall, shopping doing the things kids do. She’s a student of the game, likes to watch college softball on TV and break it down. She’s an A student, high in academics, she can learn very fast.”
Oakley spent a couple of winters in the weight room trying to make herself stronger and faster.
“From last year to this year, my batting average has gotten better, I’ve been working on hitting a lot and I’ve made a large improvement,” Oakley said.
Oakley appeared in 18 varsity games as a freshman in 2011. Her base-running ability had an impact even then as Farmington coach Randy Osnes found ways to utilize her skills regularly inserting her as a courtesy runner and she produced more runs scored (11) than at-bats (10).
“She has incredible speed, she’s very fast and very aggressive and has run a lot for us. She’s quite an athlete,” Osnes said.
As a sophomore, Oakley’s playing time increased as she saw action in the outfield, accounting for 14 stolen bases and was only caught twice. As a junior, Oakley again stole 14 bases and was caught once but showed dramatic increased production at the plate by raising her average from .155 in 71 at-bats as a sophomore to .467 in 105 at-bats as a junior with a solid .509 on- base percentage.
“She was always a natural right-hander but had the ability to slap from the time she made the commitment to move,” Osnes said describing the effectiveness of switching Oakley to a left-handed slap-hitter.
“She joined an elite class as far as the state record book this year. She had 41 singles in 30 games and we went 22-8. That’s quite a feat. I know she’ll do a good job up there for Coach Larabee. We’re excited for her.”