Del City's Brandon Garrison selected for Team USA U-18 basketball roster

Del City's Brandon Garrison selected for USA squad

Brandon Garrison of Del City has been named to 2022 USA Basketball Men’s U18 (under age 18) National Team following a week of training camp in Houston.

Oklahoma State University head basketball coach Mike Boynton Jr. is one of the coaches on the team.

The 12-man final roster, selected from among 17 finalists, will compete at the 2022 FIBA U18 Americas Championship in Tijuana, Mexico, from June 6-12. The USA team opens play Monday vs. the Dominican Republic.

The USA team has won gold in nine of 11 of the FIBA U18 Americas Championships since the event’s inception in 1990.

More: Stillwater's Jackson Holliday named Oklahoma high school baseball Gatorade Player of the Year

Stillwater's Holliday named Gatorade Player of the Year

Stillwater's third baseman Jackson Holliday was named Oklahoma's 2021-22 Gatorade Player of the Year on Friday. Holliday is the fifth Gatorade Oklahoma Baseball Player of the Year to be chosen from Stillwater High School.

The 6-foot-1, 180-pound senior shortstop set a national single-season record with 89 base hits this past season, according to the National Federation of High Schools. His performances led Stillwater to a 29-12 record and a Class 6A regional final appearance.

A top prospect in the July MLB Draft, the Oklahoma State signee batted .685 with 17 home runs and 79 RBI.

Former Tuttle coach Brian Lester hired by OSSAA

Former Tuttle coach and athletic director Brian Lester has has been hired by the Oklahoma Secondary Schools Activities Association as an assistant director.

Lester replaces David Glover, who left the OSSAA to become the athletics and operations director at Kingfisher.

Lester had previous stints at at Putnam City, West, Heritage Hall and Choctaw.

Phillies fire Girardi

Joe Girardi was fired Friday by the Philadelphia Phillies after his team’s terrible start. He's the first major league manager to lose his job this season.

Philadelphia said bench coach Rob Thomson will become interim manager for the rest of the season. Expected to contend for an NL East title, the Phillies are 22-29 and 12 games behind the first-place New York Mets.

Girardi started as the Phillies' manager in 2020 after previously managing the New York Yankees for 10 years. He finishes 132-141 with Philadelphia.

PADRES: Robinson Canó’s short stint with San Diego is over. Less than a month after signing him, the Padres parted ways with the 39-year-old slugger, who elected to become a free agent Thursday when he declined an assignment to Triple-A El Paso. San Diego had hoped the 39-year-old Canó would provide some much-needed offense against right-handed pitching but he batted just .091 without an extra-base hit in 12 games.

YANKEES: New York left-hander Nestor Cortes says Minnesota Twins broadcaster Jim Kaat reached out and apologized after referring to the Yankees' breakout pitching star as “Nestor the Molester” during a broadcast Thursday night. Cortes says the 83-year-old Hall of Fame pitcher didn't need to apologize, and he understood that “we all make mistakes.”

Ruud reaches French Open finals against Nadal

Casper Ruud has become the first Norwegian man to reach a Grand Slam singles final by eliminating 2014 U.S. Open champion Marin Cilic 3-6, 6-4, 6-2, 6-2 at Roland Garros.

The eighth-seeded Ruud is 23 and never had been past the fourth round at any major tournament until now. His father, Christian, was a professional tennis player from 1991 to 2001.

Ruud has shown that he can play well on clay, with tour highs of seven titles and 66 match wins on the surface since the start of 2020.

He now faces the toughest test there ever has been on clay, going up against 13-time French Open champion Rafael Nadal in the final on Sunday.

Nadal earned his 14th French Open final appearance on Friday when his opponent in the semifinals, Germany's Alexander Zverev, injured his ankle in the second set and could not continue.

Ruud has trained at Nadal's tennis academy in Spain and refers to the 36-year-old Spaniard as his idol.

Ruud returned Cilic's big serve well enough to break him five times and even hit more aces, 16-10. Cilic had 33 aces in the quarterfinals Wednesday.

The semifinal was interrupted for more than 10 minutes in the third set by a climate activist who attached herself to the net and knelt on the court.

DOUBLES: Americans Coco Gauff and Jessica Pegula will go up against France's Caroline Garcia and Kristina Mladenovic in the women's doubles final at Roland Garros. Garcia and Mladenovic won the 2016 title together in Paris.

KING HONORED: Tennis legend and LGBTQ rights activist Billie Jean King has received France’s highest civilian award. King, 78, received the Legion on Honor on Friday in recognition of her contributions to women’s sports, gender equality and the rights of LGBTQ people in athletics. She took part in a short ceremony at the presidential Elysee Palace at the invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron.

Smith takes one shot lead at Memorial

Cameron Smith believes he is playing the best golf of his life, and it shows. He is in the lead at Memorial, a tournament where the Australian doesn't have a great history.

Smith elicited one of the loudest cheers of a glorious afternoon Friday at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio — another anomaly for this weather-plagued tournament — when he holed out with a downhill chip from beyond the green on the par-3 12th that carried him to a 3-under 69.

He kept his one-shot lead over Denny McCarthy and K.H. Lee the rest of the day by doing what Smith does best. He holed a 15-foot putt for par on the next hole and twice made 6-foot par putts for bunker saves down the stretch.

PGA TOUR CHAMPIONS: Kirk Triplett shot a 9-under 63 on Friday to take a two-stroke lead over Jerry Kelly, Ken Tanigawa and Brett Quigley after the first round of the PGA Tour Champions’ Principal Charity Classic.

Extra points

OKC DODGERS 6, ROUND ROCK 2: Miguel Vargas drove in four runs Thursday night as the Dodgers won their eighth road game in the last 11, including six of eight at Dell Diamond in Round Rock.

ARIZONA:  Men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd will get a $1 million raise next season in a proposed five-year contract extension through 2027 following a successful first season in Tucson. The new contract would raise Lloyd’s base salary from $1.9 million to $2.9 million in 2022-23. Lloyd will continue to get $700,000 per year in additional duties compensation.

—Staff and wire reports

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: Del City's Brandon Garrison makes Team USA U-18 basketball roster