Sports

OKLAHOMA CITY - El Reno High School opened its summer baseball season with a one-run loss last week after the Oklahoma City Broncos rallied for a 6-5 win over the Indians.

The Broncos, a team made up of home-schooled players, scored three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to complete the rally. Two of those runs scored on an error off a ground ball behind second base with two outs.

The loss dropped El Reno to 0-1 in the wooden bat division of the Red Dirt League.

El Reno High School’s girls basketball team, the state runner-up in Class 5A, began work for the 2022-23 season with summer league play in Mustang.

More than 40 young basketball players took part in El Reno High School’s girls basketball skills camp last week at Jenks Simmons Field House.

Players were taught individual skills as well as team concepts.

MUSTANG – For 84 days, El Reno High School girls basketball coach Jennifer Douglas stewed over a four-point loss to McAlester in the Class 5A state championship game.

Sharing in that pain were two of her star guards, Ashlyn Evans-Thompson and Tetona Blackowl.

“It’s taken awhile to get over that pain,” said Evans-Thompson.

Blackowl agreed.

“It’s been hard and I’m not sure I’m really over it yet. I learned a lot from that game and I feel like I may never really ever get over it but I did learn from it,” said Blackowl.

Tyler Tignor’s final game as a head coach, at least for now, was a memorable one for sure.

Coaching the West squad in the 2022 Oklahoma Baseball Coaches Association’s All-State Small School Game, Tignor’s farewell effort ended in a 7-all tie after the East rallied with four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning.

The game was played at David Allen Ballpark in Enid.

El Reno High School kicked off the summer baseball season last week with two games against the Oklahoma City Broncos.

The Indians dropped both games to the home-school team in the wooden bat division of the Red Dirt League.

See Wednesday’s edition for a wrap-up of the openers.

Last week’s A Small Town Weekend event brought competitions for cars with both big and small wheels.

CENTRAL

Arcadia: Elevation is 1 ft. above normal and falling, water temperature 72°F and stained.
Saugeye fair on crankbaits around points. Channel and blue catfish good on cut bait and worms around riprap and shallows. Largemouth bass fair on plastic baits and spinnerbaits around brush structure, standing timber and weed beds.

Unlike a year ago when Shanon Eichholz rallied over the final stage to win his division of the Route 66 Triathlon Festival, the El Reno native defended his title over the weekend with everyone else chasing him.

Eichholz captured first place in the Olympic-Distance Duathlon by a double-digit margin on the clock while shaving more than seven minutes off his winning time from 2021.

The three-stage event is the sister to the regular triathlon but participants do not take part in the swimming stage. Instead, an extra running stage is added in its place.

El Reno’s Ashlyn Evans-Thompson dives for a loose ball in the first half of the Oklahoma Girls Basketball Coaches Association’s (OGBCA) Large School All-State Game over the weekend in Mustang.

See Saturday’s edition of the El Reno Tribune for a game recap of her efforts and that of former teammate Tetona Blackowl and head coach Jennifer Douglas.