Former Houston County Bear Gage Harrelson drafted by Los Angeles Angels in 16th round of 2025 MLB draft

Monday’s Day 2 of the Major League Baseball draft saw another Houston County Bear invited to the big leagues as class of 2022 graduate Gage Harrelson was drafted by the Los Angeles Angels with the 469th overall pick.

Harrelson was part of the 2021 championship team at Houston County, and led the state with 57 runs scored in his senior year according to MaxPreps. He also boasted a .495 batting average, .611 On Base Percentage, .784 Slugging Percentage, 55 hits and 32 Runs Batted In.

His high school performance earned him a spot at Texas Tech University where he stayed for the 2023 and 2024 seasons. During his time as a Red Raider he held a .284 batting average, .407 OBP, .376 SLG, tallied 106 hits, 56 RBI and 82 runs scored.

In 2023 at Texas Tech Harrelson was a Freshman All-American, Big 12 Honorable Mention, Big 12 All-Freshman selectee, and Big 12 Newcomer of the week twice.

Harrelson left for another shade of red in 2025 while moving much closer to home to Tallahassee, Florida to play for the Florida State Seminoles.

He also racked up the awards in Garnett and Gold with an All-ACC Third Team selection, College Sports Communicators Academic All-District and All-ACC Academic Team selections as well.

Harrelson is now one of six Houston County athletes to enter the professional sphere, the most recent being Andrew Dunford in 2023.

Before him there was class of 2020 graduate Jaden Woods, drafted in the 7th round of the 2023 draft. Tony Locey was drafted in the third round of the 2019 draft, DL Hall was drafted 21st overall by the Baltimore Orioles in 2017, while the most seasoned of the bunch was Eddie Solomon — an undrafted player in 1969 who played from 1969 to 1983 according to Baseball Reference.