Oklahoma State Just Signed the Best Junior College Player in the Country

Josh Holliday is bringing in six new Junior College players to join his squad for the 2016 season. One of those played high school ball at Yukon. His name is Garrett Benge and he was the Junior College National Player of the Year in 2015.

Pretty good, right? Wait until you see his stats.

Benge hit .502 with 19 bombs and 97 RBI as Cowley Community College (a good Scattergories word, by the way) went 54-5 (!!) this past season.

“Since I was little, I’ve always wanted to play at OSU,” Benge told the Wichita Eagle. “They have a great program, and going to a junior college my goal was to play good enough to go (to OSU).”

Benge was only recruited by Arkansas-Little Rock out of high school and got drafted by the Indians in the 22nd round. Still, he’s headed to Stillwater.

“… the draft changed things a little bit, but I still figure I can go to OSU and end up in the draft again, play professional ball and someday make it to the bigs. That’s always been my goal.”

“Garrett had a remarkable freshman year being the national junior college player of the year,” said Holliday. “He put up video game statistics and was part of a big-time offensive team at Cowley County so we know we’re getting a player who really knows his way around the batter’s box.

“And he turned down a significant opportunity from the Cleveland Indians to be part of Oklahoma State baseball — his desire to be at Oklahoma State was strong.”

I don’t know if it was that strong — signing bonus money for a 22nd round pick is limited (low six figures at best, normally). But still, it’s quite a coup for Holliday.

“I talked to my family quite a bit about (going pro), I talked to (coach) Burroughs a lot, I prayed a lot,” said Benge.

“The important thing to me was that they were all completely supportive of whatever decision I made. It was clear that they were all behind me 100 percent on whatever I decided to do.”

He didn’t ask me, but I am too.