Sports

El Reno High School’s softball program held a youth skills camp last week at the Ashbrook North Complex.

More than 50 campers took part in the three-day event.

The Indians open preseason workouts Tuesday.

The year is 2000 and the calendar flipped to a new century, the final Peanuts comic strip appeared in newspapers worldwide and a small drag boat race started on the waters of Fort Cobb Lake. 

Spin forward 25 years and Smoke on the Water will celebrate its 25th anniversary July 25-27 with a professional barbecue ribs cookoff, live band and cornhole tournament.

Not to mention the fastest open boat racing in Oklahoma – Outlaw style.

While the end result was a winning campaign, El Reno High School head baseball coach Keith Hill said the short summer season was more about an inner look than the outward product.

“About like anything else, I saw some really good things and not so good. I got to see a lot of the young kids and the junior varsity kids and that was important,” said Hill.

El Reno went 4-4 in the league with games played at Southeast and Putnam City. Hill said it was supposed to be a league comprised of incoming freshman and junior varsity players, but he subbed in some veteran players.

El Reno High School’s baseball program recently held its annual youth baseball skills camp.

Thirty-one players attended the event which worked on skills such as hitting, throwing and fielding.

Dean Davis stretches out to make a catch during a relay drill at the 2025 El Reno High School Youth Baseball Clinic.

See Saturday’s paper for more photos.

Aiden Williams loves to play baseball, so much so, that he pitched in last week’s Oklahoma State Games despite recovering from a serious thumb injury.

“I feel like if I took the whole summer off, then that’s just wasted opportunity to get better and get stronger. I’m using this time right now to get bigger and stronger to get back to where I was before I got injured,” said Williams.

The Union City High School senior was one of three local players on the Northwest roster, which lost to the Southeast team 5-4 on a walk-off in the seventh inning.

The City of Oklahoma City hosted the Champions Parade to celebrate the Thunder’s first NBA Championship in franchise history.

Hundreds of thousands of fans lined the parade route and Thunder players regularly walked the parade route to high-five and celebrate with fans.

El Reno High School’s football program along with the EHS Quarterback Club and El Reno Youth Football League hosted a youth skills clinic recently at Memorial Stadium.

The multi-day event was free of charge and drew around 60 campers from El Reno and other towns in the county.

While visiting in Texas a few weeks ago, I struck up a conversation with a gentleman by the name of Mark Bennett, who now lives and works south of the Red River.

Having grown up in Oklahoma City, Bennett was glad to see an Oklahoma native. I was especially shocked that he knew about El Reno.

BETHANY – Calumet High School’s baseball team scored eight runs over the sixth through eighth innings to tie Bethany before falling 12-9 to the Bronchos in a nine-inning summer league contest.

The loss was the first of the season for Calumet, which slipped to 2-1-2 on the summer. The setback dropped the Chieftains to 2-1-1 in the Varsity Division of the Red Dirt League.

Calumet trailed 6-1 through five innings, getting an opposite field solo home run from Wyatt Cox in the second inning.