Sports

NORMAN – Two words were stressed in huddle before the start of the fourth period of El Reno’s quarterfinal game at the 2023 Class 5A Girls Oklahoma State High School Basketball Championships.

“Energy and effort. We just needed to bring more energy,” said El Reno junior post player Pauline Black-Harmon.

El Reno did just that and more, using a 16-5 run to open the period en route to a 61-51 come-from-behind win over Tahlequah. The Indians avenged their 2017 quarterfinal loss to the Tigers and advanced to the semifinals for the third straight year to play Sapulpa.

NORMAN – A series of turnovers to start the first and third periods proved too big of a hurdle for El Reno to overcome in the quarterfinals of the 2023 Class 5A Boys Oklahoma State High School Basketball Championships.

Holland Hall, the No.2 seed from the East, scored 16 points off 10 El Reno miscues in the two periods en route to a 51-36 victory.

Two bad innings turned out to be the stumbling blocks for El Reno High School’s baseball team in its first District 5A-1 doubleheader of the season. Bishop McGuinness scored nine of its 11 runs for the series in those two frames as the Irish swept the doubleheader behind scores of 4-1 and 7-2. El Reno slips to 1-2 for the season and 0-2 in the district standings.

El Reno High School’s Raley Wicker-Hartley placed fourth last week at the 2023 Oklahoma Girls Powerlifting Coaches Association’s State Championships.

The junior was one of four EHS lifters to make state as the team racked up 17 points en route to a 14th-place finish out of 36 squads in the Large School Division.

Two goals in the final 23 minutes spoiled the home opener for El Reno High School’s girls soccer team as Woodward handed the Indians their first defeat of the season, 2-0.

El Reno slipped to 1-1 on the year after a 3-1 road win over Western Heights last week.

“I thought we looked good against Western Heights and the first half of the Woodward game. I just think we got out-worked a bit the second half against Woodward.

“We had plenty of opportunities to score and just couldn’t quite capitalize on them.

Woodward scored a goal in the first five minutes and rolled to a 5-1 win over El Reno High School’s boys soccer team as the Indians continue to search for their first win of 2023.

El Reno is 0-2 on the season after a 1-0 setback at Western Heights.

In the loss to the Boomers, El Reno scored a goal by senior Angel Martinez off an assist from Reyes Covarrubias.

Goalkeeper Aldo DeLaTorre logged four saves in the loss.

Starting out with back-to-back wins, Union City High School’s slow-pitch softball team is battling a two-game losing steak after setbacks to Hinton and Binger-Oney.

The Tigers dropped a 25-17 shootout to the Comets before losing 11-3 to Binger-Oney. Union City (2-2) defeated Cement (14-2) and Wayne (13-1) to kick off the spring season.

Through four games the Tigers have scored 47 runs off a .496 batting average after going 56-of-113 at the plate. The team has six doubles and one home run from Emily Griggs.

Union City High School’s baseball team kicked off the spring season with back-to-back shutout wins over Oklahoma Christian Academy and Geary.

The Tigers downed OCA by an 11-0 margin before blanking the Bisons by a 19-0 score.

Union City went 19-of-36 (.528) from the plate over the spread, with eight of those hits being doubles. Dalton Stout and Braydon Armstrong had two each.

For just the sixth time in history, both El Reno High School basketball teams earned their way to the Elite Eight for the 2023 Class 5A Oklahoma State High School Basketball Championships.

“This is just the thing you want. The more people we have going to state, the more people we are going to have in the stands. I’ve always been a firm believer that if one or two programs have success like this it can spread out to other sports,” said El Reno girls coach Jennifer Douglas.

The last time both teams made state was in 2019. Other times were in 2017, 1999, 1996 and 1994.

Being one of a handful of seniors on the El Reno High School boys basketball roster, Diante Palmer figured at some point this season he would be expected to take on some sort of a leadership role.

“I expected to be a leader at some point. I wanted to start right away but that didn’t happen because I was new to the program and I was coming over from football. But I knew a lot of the people on the team and that made it easier to be a verbal leader,” said Palmer.