New Sallisaw softball coach Wes Green, who coached the fast-pitch softball team and the Class 2A state-qualifying baseball team at Central High School, is ready for the challenge of coaching the Lady Diamonds in this upcoming 2024 fast-pitch season, which will begin next month.

“You accept every challenge down the road and take them on,” said Green, who previously coached at SHS. “It’s good to be home. It’s good to be back. It’s something I’ve done before. I’m getting to know the girls, and they’re getting used to me.”

Last week, the Lady Diamonds got to begin preseason workouts/ practices for the upcoming 2024 season.

“We got to start July 15, and we got to start a week ahead with workout sessions,” Green said. “You get a couple of weeks (to prepare for the regular season). You just have to make the most of your time on the meat and potatoes on what has to get done and what needs to be learned and repped. We start scrimmaging this week, and it then takes off.”

The two big things Green is trying to instill in these first days of preseason practices is pitching and playing defense.

“Hopefully, our pitchers will throw a lot of strikes, and we’ll play defense,” he said. “It’s just a game with timely hitting — the right bunt and the right hit at the right time — and trying to be aggressive on the bases. We just wanted to get going, start playing and find a rhythm and a routine in the game.”

Green, who will get to coach his niece Madison Green, knows winning in Class 4A, and in District 4A-6 in particular, is hard. Last fall, the Lady Diamonds went 1-20 and 0-12 in District 4A-6 play. The lone win was a 15-1 win over Gore in the Gore Tournament.

“It’s tough,” the new Sallisaw softball coach said. “(Class) 4A is very difficult. (District 4A-6) is a tough district. There’s good players here and great players here, but (Class 4A) is very tough competition — Broken Bow, Hilldale, Stigler and Tuttle.”

The Sallisaw softball coaching vacancy originally became open when coach Hillary Gehrke resigned when her husband Chadd resigned as Sallisaw boys basketball coach to take the coaching job with the Chouteau-Mazie Lady Wildcats. In June, Sallisaw assistant coach Josh Bolin was hired to replace Gehrke, but he ended up resigning about a month later.

At the Sallisaw Public Schools Board of Education meeting on July 8, it approved hiring Green as its new Lady Diamonds softball coach.

However, Green was already on board as he had been hired as the new Sallisaw cross country coach, replacing Zac Black, who resigned to return to college to pursue his counseling Master’s degree. When the Sallisaw softball coaching job became open once more, Green was asked to step in.

“I was already here in place,” Green said. “They just slid me in.”