Sports

El Reno High School’s volleyball team continues to struggle with consistency over the best of five head-to-head matches following a pair of 3-0 shutout losses.

The Indians slipped to 3-6 on the season following a 25-18/28-26/25-15 home loss to Chickasha in the volleyball installment of the U.S. 81 Battle.

El Reno led the Chicks in two of the three games including an eight-point advantage in the game two loss. That setback came on the heels of a 25-14/25-21/25-10 road loss at Class 5A’s 14th-ranked Duncan.

A five-hit effort at the plate spelled the end of a six-game win streak for El Reno High School’s fast-pitch softball team as the Indians suffered a 4-0 non-district road loss to Duncan.

The loss came on the heels of a 9-4 revenge win over Noble, with the two-game split leaving El Reno with a 10-5 overall record.

The victory over the Bears lifted the Indians to 4-3 in the District 5A-2 standings and moved EHS to within a half game of Noble for third place.

Senior Malachi Nicholson leads all El Reno High School running backs with 474 yards and six touchdowns in only two games.

The Indians were hosting Weatherford Friday night.

The team from Oklahoma Peak Performance, including three El Reno sisters, recently won the USA Volleyball Girls Junior National Championship in the 13-year-old USA Bracket.

The event was held in Minneapolis, Minn.

There were 36 teams in the USA Bracket with OP2 being the lone squad from Oklahoma.

The squad posted an 8-3 record en route to the title and an 18-7 mark in the number of sets won versus lost.

Calumet High School’s fast-pitch softball team was able to break its recent run of scoreless games and turn hits into runs last week, splitting a two-game road set at Burns-Flat.

The Chieftains, now 4-16 on the season, defeated Olustee/El Dorado 16-6, followed by a 19-7 loss to Burns Flat/Dill City.

Going into the triangular, 11 of the previous 12 games for Calumet had been shutout affairs, with CHS going 1-10 in those games. Included in that string was a recent 15-0 setback to Fort Cobb-Broxton.

After watching a 14-game win streak snapped by another one-run affair against cross-county rival Okarche, Calumet High School’s baseball team rebounded with a 15-1 victory over Lomega.

The Chieftains, now 15-1 on the season, remain second in the latest Class B poll behind Fort Cobb/Broxton.

Calumet defeated Class A’s 18th-ranked Arapaho-Butler (5-0) and Granite (9-1) before dropping a 7-6 game to Okarche, ranked 10th in Class A. The Chieftains left the tying run at second in the seventh inning of the loss after a single and stolen base from sophomore Kaleb Thiessen.

Still seeking out its first win of the 2023 campaign, Redlands Community College women’s soccer team dropped a 5-0 match to Rose State College.

The shutout loss was the second of the season for the Cougars, who slipped to 0-4 overall and 0-3 in the NJCAA Region 2 standings.

Redlands had 15 shots in the Raiders loss, eight of those by Amya Lindsay. Miya Ingram followed with three shots, while Carlie Golden and Jaidyn Gonzalez added two shots apiece.

Three passing plays, all working against El Reno High School’s football team, proved to be the turning point in the Indians Canadian County rivalry game with Piedmont.

The Wildcats converted two of those passes into two touchdowns as Piedmont defeated El Reno for a third straight season 14-6. The non-district loss dropped the Indians to 1-1 on the season.

“A loss like this is hard to take but we are going to take it and learn from it and fix our mistakes. Hopefully our kids will grow from this,” said El Reno head coach Russell Cook.

Three goals allowed in the first 26 minutes came back to haunt Redlands Community College women’s soccer team in a 3-1 home loss to the University of Arkansas Rich Mountain.

The loss dropped the Cougars to 0-3 on the season and 0-2 in the NJCAA Region 2 standings.

Redlands allowed goals in the seventh, 23rd and 26th minutes of the first half. The Cougars made it a 3-1 match just 51 seconds later (26:47) on an unassisted goal by Amya Lindsay.

While the outcome of El Reno’s first three games on the 2023 schedule means nothing when it comes to making the playoffs, the Indians are not devaluing the importance of their non-district slate.

In fact, it’s just the opposite.

El Reno went 0-3 during the non-district slate in Russell Cook’s first season, losing close games to Chickasha and Weatherford and being blown out by Piedmont.

The Indians did rebound to make the Class 5A playoffs with a third-place district finish, but the sting of those losses lingered.