Sports

Battling gusting winds and occasional spritzing rain throughout the day, Redlands Community College’s golf team defended its title for a third straight year at the 2024 Women’s Oklahoma Collegiate Athletic Conference Championships.

Playing on its home turf of Crimson Creek Golf Course, Redlands shot a 36-hole total of 638 to win by 89 strokes over Murray State College (727) – the only other full squad in the field.

The Cougars carded a 323 in the morning round, but shaved eight shots off that total in the afternoon session for a 315 effort.

El Reno High School seniors Pauline Black-Harmon (left of 5A state championship trophy) and Nazhoni Sleeper (right) signed national letters of intent to play basketball next season for Seminole State College.

The Belles play out of NJCAA Region 2 and are coached by former Redlands Community College coach Rita Story-Schell. 

Rallying from an 8-0 deficit, Redlands Community College’s baseball team posted a 10-8 win over Randall University’s junior varsity to complete a sweep of the Saints.

The Cougars took the first game of the doubleheader 11-0, which snapped a six-game losing streak. The sweep lifted Redlands to 7-30 on the season.

The 21-run scoring blitz came off a 14-of-48 (.292) hitting effort. Seven of those hits went for extra bases, led by home runs each from Ryan Sessions and Ben Huntley.

Calumet High School’s slow-pitch softball team defeated Ninnekah 11-2 for its fourth straight win to move to 5-7 on the season.

The Chieftains, now 5-7 overall, went 23-of-38 (.479) from the plate with a double from Payton Barnes and a triple by Mikay Mayo.

Tina Ortiz went 5-for-5 with four runs scored and a fifth batted in.

Mayo had three base hits and scored twice, followed by three runs each from Lily Winegeart and Summer Goff.

The trio accounted for seven runs batted in and three scored.

Brothers Kyler and Kaleb Thiessen combined to go .500 from the plate and scored four runs as Calumet High School’s baseball team posted its second straight win with an 11-3 decision over Binger-Oney.

Calumet, the top-ranked team in Class B, moved to 8-3 on the season with the victory.

The Thiessens went 4-of-8 from the plate with two base hits each and scoring two runs apiece. Kyler Thiessen doubled for the team’s lone extra base hit.

Dalton Belcher and Brendon Voss each added a single as Calumet went 6-of-16 from the plate.

After being handcuffed to a pair of runs in the first two games of the Chickasha Baseball Festival, El Reno High School jumped back into the win column with an 8-0 run-rule shutout of Guymon. The blanking of the Tigers, the third win over Guymon in a week, moved El Reno to 10-4 on the season.

The shutout halted a two-game losing streak as the Indians lost to Bridge Creek (5-1) and Marlow (19-1) to open the event.

Following a rough start, El Reno High School’s girls golf team rallied over the closing holes to tie for 11th place out of 23 teams in the 2024 Weatherford Invitational.

The Indians carded a 411 to tie Hooker, one shot from the top 10 and eight strokes out of eighth place, which was Tuttle at 403. El Reno was 19 shots away from Elk City’s fifth-place round of 392.

“Had everyone been able to cut a few strokes off their scores earlier in the round, we could have placed eighth or better,” said El Reno head coach Cameron Wilkins.

Winter weather threw a midweek hiccup into the schedule, but El Reno High School’s tennis teams were able to get in mixed results from two early-season events.

At the Lone Wolf/Big West Invitational played at Earlywine in Oklahoma City, El Reno’s girls No.1 doubles team of Jayna Graham and Brianna Barksdale took third place with a 2-1 record.

The pair defeated Elgin (7-6/6-3) but dropped a three-setter to Purcell (6-4/1-6/5-10) in the semifinals.

The duo bounced back for a 6-1/6-3 win over Chickasha’s Kiara Alexander and Tatum Whalley for the bronze.

Calumet High School’s pitching staff showed a little vulnerability against some Class 4A hitters over the weekend in the 2024 I-40 Classic as the Chieftains posted a 2-2 record. The top-ranked team in Class B moved to 7-3 on the spring with the split, beating Weatherford (11-3) and Clinton (10-0).

The losses came to Tuttle (7-5) and Elk City (9-4) after Calumet squandered a 4-1 lead.

Calumet and Union City High School’s slow-pitch softball teams found themselves on opposite ends of the win-loss spectrum at the close of play for March.

The Chieftains snapped a seven-game losing streak with a victory over Geary (5-4) and backed it up with wins over Corn Bible Academy (20-3) and Cement (10-0).

The three-game win streak moved Calumet to 4-7 for the spring.

Calumet went 28-of-55 (.509) from the plate over the three-game span, getting three doubles from Tina Ortiz. Mattie Beaver, Paige Miller, Lily Winegeart and Payton Barnes added one double each.