Ada Braves lay smack down on Lawton Colonels

By BOB FORREST Sports Writer

ADA — The scoreboard at Cougar Field Tuesday night didn’t show it, but the Lawton Colonels probably played the red-hot Ada Legion Post 72 Braves at the best possible time. These days, though, no time is a good time to tangle with Travis Graham’s club.

Less than 24 hours after completing a rain-interrupted victory over Oklahoma Baseball Academy to claim the championship at the Justin Sullivan Memorial and three days away from hosting Dewey in a zone tournament that could send Ada to next week’s Legion state tournament as the No. 1 seed, the Braves appeared to have the post-tournament, pre-playoff “blahs” early in Tuesday’s game.

But after digging themselves an early 4-1 hole and trailing 5-3 heading to the bottom of the third inning, the Braves brought out the heavy artillery. They banged out a season-high six home runs — including two apiece from Randy McCurry and Matt Mayes and a grand slam from Hunter Marcum — and scored 18 unanswered runs over their final three at-bats to rout Lawton, 21-5, in their final home game of the regular season.

The victory was the 10th in a row, 26th in 27 games and 36th in 40 starts since the first of June for a Post 72 squad that, at this point at least, appears to have very few weaknesses.

“We came out kind of flat, but when we got to that second time through the lineup, we made the adjustment,” Graham said. “Everybody hit the ball hard after that, all the way through the lineup.”

Every one of Ada’s starters had at least one hit, every spot in the batting order had at least one run scored, and four different players — McCurry, Mayes, Marcum and catcher Riley Keith — drove in at least three runs. In addition, reserves Jake Williams and Matt Johnson reached base in their only plate appearances, and both scored in a two-out, six-run rally in the sixth inning.

“It’s contagious,” Graham said. “Once we started hitting, EVERYBODY started hitting.

“We’re going to the playoffs with 17 guys, and there’s not a guy I would replace,” he added. “I have the 17 guys I would want.”

Ada starter David Cagle (7-1) hit a batter and issued two walks ahead of a two-out, opposite-field grand slam by Lawton three-hole hitter Josh Neilson in the top of the second that gave the Colonels their 4-1 lead. Then, after the top two hitters in the Post 72 lineup — Robert Thomas and Jeremy Stein — beat out infield hits with two outs in the third and scored on Keith’s double to left-center to make it 4-3, Lawton scored an unearned run in the top of the fourth with the help of the only two Ada errors of the game.

But Mayes and Jon Ervin hit back-to-back shots over the fence in center field in the bottom of the inning to tie the game, Cagle settled down after a shaky start, and the Ada defense cut down a pair of Lawton baserunners at the plate to kill the Colonels’ only two scoring threats the rest of the way.

The Braves scored 10 runs on eight hits in the fifth off Lawton starting pitcher Dillon Hargrove to finally blow the game open, and they added six more (all unearned) in the sixth after Neilson, the third Lawton pitcher, had struck out the first two batters he faced.

Stein — who had three hits and kept the pivotal third-inning rally alive when he hustled down the line to beat out an infield single just ahead of Keith’s double — opened the fifth with a single and scored the go-ahead run on McCurry’s team-leading 11th home run of the season, a first-pitch laser over the fence in left with one out.

Hargrove then walked Mayes and Ervin before giving up an RBI single to left to Tyler Porter that made it 8-5. Chad Woods followed with a four-pitch walk to load the bases ahead of Marcum’s first home run of the summer to dead center field. Thomas lined out for the second out in the inning, but Stein legged out another infield hit, Keith also beat out an infield single on a slow roller to third, and McCurry blasted another first-pitch home run — this one a line drive to right-center — to make it 15-5 and finally chase Hargrove.

Neilson struck out Porter and Woods on seven pitches to open the sixth, but he hit Matt Johnson (who had replaced Marcum at second base in the top of the inning) on an 0-1 pitch. Johnson moved to second on a wild pitch and scored as Thomas reached on the fourth Lawton error of the game, and Jake Williams (batting for Stein) beat out an infield hit on a ground ball to shortstop.

Keith then fell behind 1-2 before driving a fastball high off the wall in center field for his second double of the game to plate Thomas and Williams, and he was replaced on the bases by J. P. Maples, who scored on back-to-back wild pitches. McCurry walked on a 3-2 pitch, and Mayes drilled Neilson’s next offering high over the fence in center field for his second tape-measure homer of the game and his fourth in five games. The Purcell product has nine home runs this season and leads the team with three muli-homer games.

Cagle, who is scheduled to start Ada’s state tournament opener if the Braves can get past Dewey as expected this weekend, consistently got ahead of the Lawton hitters, throwing first-pitch strikes to 20 of the 29 batters he faced — including all three who scored ahead of Neilson’s grand slam in the second. But he walked six and hit another batter and was charged with four earned runs despite giving up just three hits in his six innings on the mound.

“When Cagle was walking some guys early, it kind of put everybody on their heels,” Graham said. “The pitcher kind of sets the tone, but I wasn’t concerned — I knew he would settle down. He hadn’t started a game in almost two weeks. He just needed to get some work.”

Keith — who also fielded a couple of tough throws to tag out Lawton baserunners at the plate in the fifth and seventh innings — finished with four hits, including two doubles, and a season-high five RBIs, and Mayes and Stein both went 3-for-4 to pace a 19-hit Ada attack. McCurry, Ada’s starting shortstop, finished the game in center field after he and Thomas (who scored three runs from the leadoff spot) swapped positions in the final inning and was 2-for-4 with three runs scored and five RBIs. Porter, coming off an eight-RBI performance in the Sullivan Memorial, was 2-for-4 with a run scored and an RBI.

The opener to the Ada-Dewey zone tournament will begin at 7 p.m. Friday, and the teams will play again at 1 p.m. Saturday. If necessary, a third game in the best-of-three series will played immediately after Saturday’s opener.

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