As a few great fielders do, Brandan Warner often makes tough plays look easy. Whether it’s a short hop of a chopper as he charging in full tilt, a back-handed snag of a one-hop shot or ranging way to his left or right, he gets his glove to the ball and secures it. And even from some odd angles, he makes strong throws or quick throws or both — whatever is required to get the out.
There are, of course, a lot of good fielders that never get an opportunity to play past high school and American Legion. And Warner struggled at the plate early in his career at those levels. But he developed a knack for hitting in the clutch and, with lots of work, became one of the top hitters for the Bryant Hornets and the Bryant Black Sox in 2015.
And with that to go with his defense, colleges started taking notice, culminating on Thursday, July 9, as Brandan, the son of Richard and Kelly Warner, signed a letter of intent to continue his baseball career and education at the University of Arkansas-Fort Smith this fall.
“We feel like they’re getting the best third baseman in the state of Arkansas,” declared Bryant High School head coach Kirk Bock. “Defensively, I’ve yet to see anyone any better.”
“We’ve played in four different states this year,” added Legion manager Darren Hurt, “and I’ve yet to see anybody that can play third base like Brandan can.”
Warner was a key part of the Hornets 2014 Class 7A State championship team and the Black Sox’ 2014 State title squad that came within a win of winning a Regional and advancing to the Legion World Series.
He’s currently hitting .346 for a Sox team that’s 27-6-2 entering the final week of the regular season. Moved from an RBI spot to lead-off since an injury to teammate Drew Tipton, Warner leads the team in steals with 14 and walks with 23 while still knocking in 21 runs.
He’s also developed into the Sox’ closer. Through 10 innings, he had an earned run average of 0.70 with 14 strikeouts and three saves.
This spring, Warner paced the 28-3 Hornets with 27 RBIs, hitting .353 with a team-high nine doubles. He also stole 15 bags.
“We’ve had him in the lead-off spot and he’s doing good things,” Hurt noted. “And he’s stealing a lot of bags. He can run. He’s a good base-runner. Offensively, him being in that lead-off spot with Tip being out has been big for us. And he’s pitched really well for us.”
“They’re getting a guy that’s just coming into his own right now as far as swinging it,” Bock related. “He did a tremendous job for us the last couple of years. He’s really learned how to handle the bat better each year he’s been playing. He learned timing and rhythm and how to control his body.
“I think he’s certainly going to be an impact player for them, if not this next year as a freshman, as a sophomore,” Bock added.
During 2014, Warner hit .257 for the Hornets and .311 for the Sox. In 2013, he was a member of the first Black Sox team to win a Junior Legion State title. He hit .273 for the 38-2 Sox. He drove in 23 runs with 30 hits.
“My hitting’s been inconsistent over three years,” he acknowledged. “I think now it’s starting to come on really well but I think my defense has been pretty consistent throughout the three years I’ve played here.”
Regarding his knack for hitting in the clutch, he added, “It might be a matter of focus. Whenever you get in a clutch situation with two or three guys on and two outs late in a ballgame and you need a big hit, you’ve got to come up clutch. That’s just baseball. That comes down to all the hard work, the work ethic, that we put in with Coach Bock in the mornings then Coach Bock in the afternoons. That all pays off especially in those late innings of ballgames.”
Asked about the recruiting process, Warner said, “It started basically last year. I started getting interest from certain colleges, mainly from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and a little from UCA and Arkansas State. But I really didn’t see a good fit because they didn’t offer much of a scholarship — UALR, a little bit — but I wanted the actual experience of college.
“Right before senior year started, Fort Smith contacted me and I went up for a visit and I fell in love with it,” he added. “I loved the campus. I loved the atmosphere. I loved the coaches. And that settled it in. They offered and there it was.”
He’ll be joining former teammate Ozzie Hurt, another stellar defender.
“Ozzie being up there kind of helped me with the coaches, not necessarily pushing me towards the school but getting me noticed,” Warner mentioned. “The coaches told me that Ozzie had said I was a good ballplayer after they started recruiting me. I think that’s when they started to push more towards me so I think Ozzie Hurt did help a lot and I really do appreciate that.”
Along with starting at third in baseball, Warner was the starting quarterback for the Hornets football team as a junior and a senior. Though a concussion cut into his playing time his junior year, he still completed 85 of 143 passes for 1,063 yards and 11 touchdowns. He came back quicker and faster for his senior season and adapted his game to become a dual threat, passing for 1,485 yards and seven touchdowns (with just two interceptions in 198 throws) and rushing for 579 yards for a team that came excruciatingly close to upsetting eventual champion Bentonville in the quarterfinals of the State playoffs.
As a freshman playing three sports, Warner quarterbacked the Junior Hornets to an undefeated season and a Central Arkansas Junior High Conference championship throwing for 26 touchdowns and 1,732 yards. He also played basketball and was the most prolific 3-point shooter for a team that won a league title.
“Baseball’s always been my one true love,” he allowed. “A lot of baseball kids will say that. I came into baseball my freshman year and I came in late because of basketball. And I was behind in the program so I didn’t get a lot of baseball time, which I really wanted to. I knew that if I wanted to play baseball in college that I needed to quit basketball. So I did that.
“Then I knew that no one’s going to take a 5-11 quarterback so I knew that baseball was going to be my choice,” he continued.
He acknowledged that all the extra work, mornings and afternoons, with the baseball team was tough for him early in his high school career but he eventually realized how it was benefitting him.
“I think I started realizing that in the middle of my junior year,” he related. “Once I started my sophomore year, I thought I was just playing to fill in for somebody. Then my junior year came along and I was getting better as the year was going on. And I think that’s when I realized that college was going to be a real big option for me in the future. I just had to keep pushing towards it.
“My ninth grade year, like I said, I came in late and they won State,” he recalled. “I don’t know if I would’ve been on the varsity team at that time. I doubt it because I had a pretty rough freshman year. But my sophomore year, we got beat out early (semifinals) and that was a heartbreaker because I really thought we had a shot.
“My junior year when we won it, it was an unreal feeling. It’s so surreal when that last pitch is thrown and you realize you’re the State champions. It was a great feeling. We came up short this year but I still think we had the best team in the State. We just got beat on a bad day.”
