Sports

MUSTANG – El Reno High School’s cross country season came to an end at the Class 5A West Regional recently as eight runners missed out on qualifying for passes to state.

Running at Wildhorse Park, El Reno had three entries in the girls 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) race, with Piedmont winning the team title after taking five of the top 10 individual finishes.

Cielo Caso Estrada was El Reno’s top finisher in 71st place after posting an average kilometer time of five minutes and 12.66 seconds. She completed the course with an overall time of 26:03.

El Reno High School has developed a run-first ground attack which has racked up over 1,600 yards on the ground through eight games.

Despite stronger play over the second half of the 2022 season, Redlands Community College’s soccer team fell one victory shy of making the field for the NJCAA Region 2 Championships.

Redlands dropped its final two matches of the regular season, traveling to Missouri for a 3-1 setback against Crowder College to split the season series with the Roughriders.

“We outshot them, just couldn’t find the back of the net,” said Redlands head coach Beau Richmond.

The District 5A-1 playoff picture was shook up somewhat last week by El Reno High School’s stunning 32-29 upset of Lawton MacArthur as three teams are now tied for the final two postseason berths – and another close behind.

El Reno moved into a three-way tie with Noble and MacArthur for third place in the district standings behind Midwest City (5-0) and Elgin (4-1). All three third-place teams are tied at 3-2.

El Reno High School’s Cielo Caso Estrada runs into a turn during the final kilometer of the 2022 Class 5A West Regional Cross Country Championship held at Wildhorse Park in Mustang.

See Saturday’s paper for a complete roundup.

A wild finish for the second straight week resulted in another key win for El Reno High School's football team in the chase for a postseason berth.

El Reno scored the game-winning touchdown with 1:21 left in the fourth period, then turned to its defense for a fourth-down stop to preserve a 32-29 win over Lawton MacArthur.

The victory lifted El Reno to 3-5 on the season, but more importantly, 3-2 in the District 5A-1 standings.

Whether it’s holding a line on defense or opening up holes on offense for others to follow, El Reno High School senior Ryan Sigler is the type of two-way player coaches dream about.

“He is a great kid and is very coachable. He starts both ways and rarely ever comes off the field. He’s very disciplined, a great team leader and always polite. We are glad he is an El Reno Indian,” said head coach Russell Cook.

If there is a silver lining to last week’s 3-0 loss to Northern Oklahoma College of Tonkawa, it’s the fact that Redlands Community College’s soccer team is becoming competitive with the region’s upper echelon teams.

The Mavericks, ranked No.14 in the nation, defeated Redlands 6-0 less than a month earlier.

The second meeting was a two-goal affair until the final 15 minutes of the second half when a defensive slip by the Cougars allowed NOC to score off a corner kick.

El Reno High School’s season stats took a jump last week in the Indians 20-15 win over Ardmore.

Both Redlands Community College teams were the lone two-year squads entered in the 2022 Oklahoma Baptist University’s Cross Country Invitational and ran away with a pair of fifth-place finishes.

The Redlands women ran the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile) course at Gordon Cooper Technology Center in Shawnee with an overall time of two hours and 3.17 minutes.

The average time per runner was 24:39 as the Cougars closed with 144 points.