Sports

CHICKASHA – When he took over the reins of direct play-calling in a dual role as offensive coordinator, El Reno High School head football coach Russell Cook promised a more wide-open attack in 2025.

He delivered in his first game out.

El Reno rolled up 457 yards in total offense as the Indians opened up the season with a 42-27 win over Chickasha for its third straight win in the U.S. 81 Battle.

“I told you it would look different,” said Cook.

Riding a strong serving effort, El Reno High School’s volleyball team picked up a 3-0 win over Chickasha in the hard-court version of the U.S. 81 Battle to reach the 10-win mark for a second straight season.

El Reno, now 10-7 on the season, jumped up four spots in the latest Class 5A poll to No.10 with the 25-7/25-13/25-16 win.

The Indians served at 95.8 percent and were 20 percentage points higher than Chickasha. The Indians held the edge in ace serves by a 10-3 margin, led by Radley Miller with four.

Redlands Community College’s cross country team kicked off the 2025 season at the Oklahoma State University Cowboys Preview in Stillwater.

The Cougars had seven runners in the men’s 5,000-meter race, closing in fourth place with 110 points behind Oklahoma State (29), Oklahoma (32) and Tulsa (72).

Redlands had an overall time of 1 hour and 38.47 minutes, which averaged out to 19.45 minutes per entry.

Andres Mandujano led the Cougars in 27th place with an average pace of 5:37.30 leading to his overall time of 17:28.

Though losing four of five games in the last 10 days due to weather, El Reno High School’s fast-pitch softball team was able to squeeze in a 7-1 road win over the Oklahoma City Broncos.

El Reno moved to 3-7 on the season after breaking a 1-all tie with two runs in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings.

The seven runs came off a 10-hit effort by the Indians, led by a double each from Brailynn Vickery, Addilinn Johnson and Amalie Kalcevova. Johnson added a triple and led all El Reno batters with three base hits.

Doubles by Mia Gambel and Kamryn Cook and a triple from Rylee Zacharias helped fuel state-ranked Union City High School’s fast-pitch softball team to a 9-1 win over Calumet.

The victory was the first step in earning bragging rights among the Canadian County small schools and the Tigers need to defeat Okarche to do so. 

Union City, ranked 14th in Class A, moved to 12-4 on the season with the win, which came on the heels of a shutout over Navajo (16-0).

Both Union City and Calumet High School’s baseball teams have been playing against a stacked schedule of ranked opponents in the last week while dodging rainstorms to get in the games.

Union City was ranked No.8 this week in the latest Class A-2 poll with a 10-8 record after dropping three of five games to ranked squads in Dover (7th 7/B) 5-1, Drummond (10th/B) 5-4 and Amber-Pocasset (11th/2A) 11-1.

The Tigers defeated Glencoe (6-0) and Cheyenne/Reydon (13-1).

Citing the need for a “change in direction” within its volleyball program, El Reno Public Schools Athletic Director Rodney Haydon said Kristen Koehler has been removed as head coach mid-season.

“We felt like we needed a change in direction and decided to make a move at this time. We will try to make it as easy of a transition as possible for the players over the rest of the year.

“We want to give them the best opportunity moving forward to get through the season,” said Haydon.

While the non-district portion of El Reno High School’s football schedule will have no bearing if the Indians make the playoffs or not, Friday’s game with Piedmont is big.

Just how big?

“They’re kind of a rival. We haven’t beat them in the first three years I’ve been here. We’ve been close the last two years for sure and I would like to get a win against them one time before we cancel the series. But it was a rivalry before I got here,” said El Reno head coach Russell Cook.

Learning from missteps in a tournament loss to Shawnee just days earlier, El Reno High School’s volleyball team upset the Class 5A ninth-ranked Wolves to kick off Suburban Conference play.

El Reno, ranked No.14 in the same poll, improved to 9-7 on the season with the 25-16/21-25/25-20/25-16 victory.

The Indians moved to 2-2 on the year in non-tournament matches and 2-1 inside Jenks Simmons Field House.

Neither squad served well over the four games with El Reno closing at 86 percent, while Shawnee slipped to 79 percent after committing 16 serving errors.

El Reno lost three games last week to rain.

The Indians will make up a game with Midwest City (9/23) and two with Santa Fe South (9/25).

No date on the Union City game has been given.