Former Ada GA is new head coach for 2022 Ada Braves
Jul. 14—Former Ada High School graduate assistant coach Garrett Lemons is the head coach of the 2022 Ada Braves American Legion baseball team this summer.
Lemons spent the last school year as a graduate assistant for both the Ada High football team and the Ada High baseball team.
This summer he accepted a job at Lone Grove High School, his alma mater, as an assistant football coach and assistant baseball coach.
"I'm back home," Lemons said. He graduated from Lone Grove in 2017.
The Ada Braves have had their share of struggles so far this summer, but Lemons hopes his team has turned the corner heading into the 6th Annual Rusty Felps Memorial Tournament in Warner.
"We're really young. We hadn't been doing that great but we won three games last weekend in Woodward (at The Travelers' Shootout)," Lemons said.
The current Ada Braves roster includes Jagger Caldwell, Kaden Gallagher, Eli Justus, Tre Ivy, Kyler Gaddis and Elvis Edwards, all of Ada; New Lima's Garrett Burgess; Garrett Nix and Emmit Koonce, both of Allen; Cash Wofford, Taecyn Meek, Davin Weller and Luke Foreman, all of Tupelo; Jayton Johnson of Coleman and Caden McHatton of Madill.
On Friday, the Post 72 squad will meet Fort Smith Forsgren at 6 p.m. at Connors State College.
The Braves will play a pair of games on Saturday. They will battle the OK Athletics at 11:15 a.m. and face Dawgs #1 at 6 p.m. Both of those contests will be played at Warner High School.
On Sunday, the Ada Braves meet the OK Expos at 11:15 a.m. at Warner High School.
Garrett played three spring seasons for the East Central University baseball squad. He graduated from ECU in May.
During the 2021 season, his final stint with the Tigers, he walked 26 times. That was good for ninth on the ECU single-season all-time list.
Other highlights from that spring included:
—He was the lone player to see action in all 40 games and was a starter in each one.
—He finished with 20 runs scored, 36 hits, seven doubles, two triples, four home runs and 24 RBIs.
—He went 3-for-3 in stolen base attempts.
—He registered 84 putouts and four assisted outs with a .926 fielding percentage.
There are only two registered Oklahoma American Legion Senior Teams this summer — Bethany Post 12 AA and the Woodward Travelers AAA.
Lemons said the Braves and those two teams would battle it out to determine a state champion and earn the right to represent Oklahoma at the Mid-South Regional Tournament scheduled for Aug. 3-7 at Pelham, Alabama.
Lemons said there were talks of hosting the Oklahoma playoff series at Ada High School's Cougar Field. That event would need to take place some time between July 25-30.
"Last we talked about it, we were trying to play it at Ada High School's field. It's still up in the air right now," Lemons said.
