After emerging unscathed through a run of games against the other four teams in the top half of the District 5A-1 standings, El Reno High School’s football team is now the odds-on favorite to claim the league championship.
“I know the players believe they are the district champs, but we have got to use the next two weeks to get better,” said El Reno head coach Chuck Atchison.
While all the teams in District 5A-1 will enter the playoffs this season after last week's decision by the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association, the order of finish may have settled itself on the field.
El Reno remains the only unbeaten team in the district following Friday night's 34-16 win over Ardmore at Memorial Stadium.
The Indians improved to 5-2 on the season and 4-0 in the 5A-1 standings, while Ardmore slipped from a tie for second place into fifth at 2-2 overall and 1-2 in the league.
Forced by a growing number of teams losing games due to the spread of COVID-19, the Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association opened up the 2020 football playoffs to every team in the state.
“With the cancellation of numerous games in district play, it caused us some concerns on how games could be made up. We did not think we would have as many games canceled as we had,” said OSSAA Associate Director Mark Whaley during a Zoom call with members of the media.
Redlands Community College’s golf team had its perfect run through the fall portion of the 2020-21 schedule snapped in the final tournament before breaking until spring.
The Cougars took second place at the Sydney Cox Invitational, which was played on the East and West Courses at Lincoln Park Golf Course in Oklahoma City.
Redlands fired a two-day total of 593 after posting rounds of 300 and 293 over the final 18 holes.
Texas Wesleyan edged out the Cougars for first place (591) by two strokes on the final day with a 291 after the two teams were tied after day one.
With three games left in the regular season, the four schools headed for the playoffs from District 5A-1 seem to have been determined, even though the records have been skewed by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Now what place those teams will fall into the pecking order for the postseason is still far from being finalized, which makes El Reno High School’s game with Ardmore Friday night a must-win for the Indians.
Stealing a page from Bill Belicheck’s NFL playbook, El Reno High School’s football team rolled out a long-practiced trick play to score a 2-point conversion and a defeat of Duncan in overtime, 43-42.
“It’s like what the Patriots ran in the Super Bowl with Tom Brady. At first we were going to go for just one point and overtime again. Coach Atchison (Chuck) and all of us felt strongly about the play. We have been practicing it for weeks so it was nothing new,” said senior Darius Moore.
In the statistics book, El Reno High School’s volleyball team had the 2020 season end with a 3-1 loss to No.11 Glenpool in the title match of the Class 5A, Region 6 Championship. What the 26-28/22-25/25-17/17-25 score won’t show is just how close the sixth-ranked Indians were to winning the regional, hosted at Jenks Simmons Field House annex, and making the school’s first trip to state since 1993.
MIDWEST CITY - Runners were greeted to warmer than expected temperatures here last week as the 2020 Suburban Conference Cross Country Championships netted a seventh-place finish for the El Reno High School boys team.
The Indians top five runners posted an overall time of one hour, 43 minutes and 56 seconds, with an average finishing time of 20:47.25 per runner over the 5-kilometer (3.11-mile) course at Carl Albert.
Traveling to Arkansas for a makeup meet, Redlands Community College’s cross country team got a chance to measure its progress against runners from several levels.
The 2020 Lions Club Bucks Overland Classic was held on the Mena Lions Disc Golf Course, hosted by the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain.
“It was a challenging and hilly course, but that didn’t stop our men from getting some personal records against schools from the NAIA, NJCAA and NCAA Division 2.
The 2020 August roadside quail observation survey shows the statewide quail index down from 2019, dropping from 2.88 to 1.68.
This is 68.48 percent below the 31-year average of 5.33, and 45.28 percent below the 10-year average of 3.07.
However, when evaluated by ecoregion, Oklahoma’s quail index went up over last year in five of the state’s nine ecoregions.
