BRANNON WESTMORELAND

From the first time that Connors State baseball coach Perry Keith watched Haskell High School athlete Brannon Westmoreland play, he had a pretty good idea that he could end up being special. 

“I started watching him play his junior year and even went to watch him play quarterback in a game his senior year. But the thing that really tripped my trigger on him was watching him play in a tournament here one July day. In that heat I watched him catch seven innings in a noon game and then  turn around and pitch seven innings in a four o’clock game  and he still had good stuff at the end of the game and I knew then he was a ball player,” said Keith who has a pretty good track record of spotting and grooming talent in his 39 years at Connors that has made him the winningest active coach in NJCAA history.

Brannon was a multi-sport athlete at Haskell who could probably have been a standout in either football or baseball.

“It was probably around my sophomore year that I started getting good at pitching and figured baseball was probably going to be the sport that carried me forward,” said Westmoreland. “I pitched at a couple of high school tournaments at Connors over the years with coach Keith watching and he made me an offer and they obviously have a really good program here, so I decided to jump in.”

And he’s jumped in quite successfully so far in his freshman year. Thus far he’s started two games and won them both while also seeing action out of the bullpen for the Cowboys. In 24 innings pitched, he’s struck out 25 batters and registered a sparkling 1.11 ERA while making the transition from high school to college baseball look easy.

“On the one hand you have to work a lot harder at this level to out-compete everyone else to get a spot, but on the other hand I don’t have to pitch as much as I did in high school which is good,” said Westmoreland. “At this level you really have to spot up your pitches a lot more and can’t afford to make mistakes with pitches down the middle that your speed let you get away with in high school.”

Since he took college classes in high school, the academic side of college life has been pretty easy for Brannon and feels the chemistry on this team is, in part, responsible for the Cowboys good start.

“We’re all good friends and are really close with one another and I think that’s been a good part of our success,” said Westmoreland.

At this point the Cowboys are 29-3 on the season with series wins over conference rivals Seminole and Eastern and Perry Keith is pleased with how the team and his young freshman are performing

“We’re having a good season so far and Brannon is having a great freshman year. I’ve been really proud of our pitching so far.Brannon is such a fierce competitor and has been everything we hoped he would be,” said the Hall of Fame Cowboy head man.