DEWEY LADY DOGGERS HAVE WEALTH OF TALENT; RILEY ALLEN IN FIRST YEAR AS SOFTBALL COACH
Dewey High School’s Londyn Bond makes a play during last season. The Lady Bulldoggers bring back a wealth of talent. Coach Riley Allen takes over Niki Keck, who resigned to take a head coaching position at Crowder College.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
July 23, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
Dewey High School softball fans could enjoy many happy evenings this coming season.
The Lady Doggers — who flirted last year with qualifying for the state tournament — will be led by their Fiery Four of sparkling talents. The list includes fourth-year starting pitcher Kyla Overton and her fourth-year catcher Chanley Herren, slugger extraordinaire Londyn Bond and shut-down shortstop Jaelynn Smith.
The rest of the mix will include some talented and motivated battlers including second baseman Macie Dugger, who is back for her sophomore campaign and penciled in as the leadoff batter.
First-year head coach Riley Allen — who served as a team assistant in 2022 and 2023 — sounded optimistic about this year’s team being able to build on last year’s success.
“Absolutely,” he said about the potential to make a run into the state tournament. “It relies on Kyle. If Kyle can do what she does we’ll have a good chance.”
Overton flings a fastball up to 65-miles-per-hour “and has a good drop and good curveball,” Allen said. “She’s really good.”
Overton also brings a strong bat to the lineup, he added.
He compared the hammer-hitting Bond to possibly the “the Barry Bonds of Washington County. … In my opinion she’s the best hitter in the state, for sure in the area.”
Dewey’s defensive play will congeal around Smith’s performance.
“She plays excellent defense,” Allen said. “She’s very, very fast. … She’s very consistent in everything all the time.”
This will be Dewey’s first season in the better part of a decade without Nikki Keck as head coach. Keck resigned after last season in order to coach on the college level. Keck guided Dewey to the state tournament for three consecutive years (2019-21), but the Lady Doggers’ season has ended with deep regional runs the past two seasons.
With so much super-shock-and-sock talent leading the way in 2025, Dewey could pursue another regional crown and reservation for state.
NOTE: Macie Dugger’s mother Larissa Shepherd was one of Bartlesville High School’s top softball players in the latter 1990s. She helped lead the Lady Bruins to the state championship game in 1998 and also socked a walk-off grand slam homer in the ASA Nationals for the Bartlesville Chevy Blazers summer competitive team. … Allen coached the Dogger baseball team to 20 wins (20-15) last spring. … Bond is the state’s defending champion in the girls’ shot put (40-5.75). … Overton earned two medals at last spring’s state track meet — third in the girls shot put (38-10.75) and sixth in the discus (106-7).