Many athletes say goodbye to their high school teammates when they graduate, but for Wichita State baseball’s Lane Haworth, Tyler Dobbs and MJ Seo, they get to play together in college.
“When you go to college, you tend to just not know anybody,” Haworth, a sophomore, said. “I got to college, and he (Dobbs) was one of my roommates my freshman year, and we kind of just got to go through it together. I think it’s better off doing it that way than not knowing anybody.”
Dobbs, also a sophomore, said he has good memories of playing with his former teammates in high school.
“It’s cool that I can continue to have good memories going into college,” Dobbs said. “And it’s always good to just have somebody that you know.”
The three Shockers played at Hebron High School in Carrollton, Texas. Hebron has an enrollment of over 3,500 students and is less than an hour away from Dallas. Since they were kids, Dobbs and Haworth wanted to play college ball together.
“I didn’t have any offers coming out of high school,” Dobbs said. “And then me and Lane played summer ball together, and then we ended up getting the offer to come to Wichita State. We talked about it since we were 12 years old — if we get the opportunity, let’s go play with each other.”
Haworth and Dobbs are returners from last year’s Shocker baseball team.
“Me and Tyler both decided to come in, and anytime you get a chance to play college baseball with one of your friends, that’s an opportunity that you don’t really want to pass up,” Haworth said
Haworth is an outfielder and has started 48 games in his WSU career.
“I chose to play here because I trusted the coaches,” Haworth said. “When I got recruited here, it was with the old coaching staff, and the new coaching staff came in and called us and kept us wanting to come here.”
In his two seasons, Haworth has hit .273 with seven home runs and 39 RBIs. In February this season, he hit a walk-off home run against Cal State Fullerton.
“We were down by one in the bottom of the ninth,” Haworth said. “Two outs. JB (Jordan Black) was on first, and I was like the only way to get this game over with is just to swing as hard as possible, and I knew the pitcher was throwing a fastball.”
Dobbs is a pitcher who has primarily come out of the bullpen this year.
So far in his Shocker career, Dobbs has pitched in 36 games and started 10. He has posted a 7-6 record in 73 ⅔ innings with a 4.76 ERA and 59 strikeouts.
“My goal is to develop and enjoy playing the game,” Dobbs said. “I like the group of guys that we had last year and like the group of guys we have this year. Getting better is the biggest goal but also creating friendships that will last a lifetime is big to me, too.”
Seo, a redshirt freshman pitcher, is a year younger than Haworth and Dobbs. He is in his first year at Wichita State after a previous stop at Louisiana State.
“I think having Lane and Tyler here were big, and I thought the coaches were really good here,” Seo said. “And I just wanted to be a part of the culture they have here.”
Dobbs said he became friends with Seo during high school as well.
“He (Seo) helped me develop and stuff I did not know much about,” Dobbs said.
Seo has only made one appearance this year against Division II Chaminade in February. In the game, Seo only coerced one out and allowed four runs on a homer and two walks.
“It was a pretty rough outing,” Seo said. “But I have just learned how to deal with failure. You know, that’s something that I didn’t really go through a whole lot, like in high school.”
Seo has not pitched since Chaminade and is now doing batting practice. Out of high school, Seo ranked as the 40th best shortstop in the nation by Perfect Game.
“It’s something that I’ve been kind of thinking of,” Seo said. “So I was supposed to do both at LSU, and then we kind of just figured it’s really hard to do both at that level. So, coming in, they told me to focus on pitching, and then I got hurt and never (started) hitting again. And then ever since … I got here, I’ve always thought of hitting, like, in the back of my mind, but I didn’t really bring it up. But after the Chaminade game. I was like ‘Dude, it can’t get any worse.’”
Seo is now taking batting practice and enjoying both sides.
Next year, the Shockers will add another Hebron alum. The Shockers signed left-handed pitcher Will Patterson in December. Patterson graduated from Hebron in 2023 and has played for two years at Tyler Junior College in Texas.
