Sports

Rebounding from an opening-game loss, El Reno High School’s volleyball team earned its second Suburban Conference win of the season with a 3-1 decision over the Noble Bears.

The 17-25/25-20/26-24/25-55 win moved the Indians, ranked 11th in Class 5A, to 2-1 in the conference and 13-10 on the season.

El Reno served at 88 percent on the night with 12 aces.

Avery Peffer led the way with four aces, followed by Madison Patswald with three, two each from Ariana Ortega and Bailey Denwalt and Bri Barksdale with one ace.

Redlands Community College soccer players celebrate Sunday’s 3-2 overtime win over Murray State as an Aggies player sits dejected on the field.

See Saturday’s edition for a round-up.

NOBLE – After a three week hiatus and two periods of near misses, El Reno High School's football team finally found its offensive groove in the second half of its District 5A-1 opener against Noble.

Unfortunately, so did the Bears.

Noble, holding a slim 7-0 halftime lead, outscored El Reno 39-21 over the final two periods en route to a 46-21 win.

The loss dropped El Reno to 0-2 on the season while Noble improved to 3-1. The game was the Indians first since August 27 due to a two-week COVID-19 lock down and a open week.

Rallying from behind in the first two games, El Reno High School’s volleyball team raced out to a 10-1 lead in the third game last week against Class 5A’s 16th-ranked Santa Fe South and then held on for a 3-0 win over the St. Bernards.

The 25-21/25-15/25-20 non-conference victory moved El Reno, ranked 11th in the same poll, to 13-9 on the season.

El Reno served at 90.4 percent with eight aces, six of those from Bailey Denwalt and one each by Avery Peffer and Ariana Ortega.

Putting together both hits and runs, El Reno High School’s softball team has been making some noise with a late-season push in the win column and the District 5A-2 standings.

El Reno defeated Enid last week 9-4 a day after completing a district sweep of Noble by way of a 17-6 road win over the Bears. The Indians are now 5-1 in their last six games, all on the road, to improve to 11-14 on the season.

CALUMET – As expected, the annual fall baseball Bedlam Battle between Canadian County’s two smallest schools came down to the final out in the seventh inning.

Calumet took a two-run lead into the top of the seventh against rival Union City, only to watch the Tigers get a lead-off single from Dalton Stout. That brought UCHS’ leading hitter Braydon Armstrong to the plate.

In what head coach Cody Schmidt called a “heck of a weird fast-pitch game,” Union City High School’s softball team closed out the regular season last week with a 20-17 loss to Fletcher.

The Tigers went 1-3 over their last three games, defeating Bray-Doyle (9-8) but losing to Cashion (11-1) to take a 14-11 overall mark into the postseason.

In the loss to Fletcher, the teams combined for 31 hits but left 15 runners stranded on base – 10 of those by Union City. The teams had a combined five errors.

From the outside, one might think a three-week break would be a good thing for El Reno High School’s football team to get rested up and prepared for the start of District 5A-1 play.

It’s been just the opposite for the Indians.

El Reno was slapped with a COVID-19 quarantine after two players tested positive following contact with a Cache player in the season opener. The Indians lost not only two games, Piedmont and Weatherford, but nine days of practice time.

One day after sweeping Capitol Hill in district play, El Reno High School’s softball team split two games in the 2021 Dale Festival against a pair of ranked teams.

El Reno improved to 9-14 on the season after beating Class B’s ninth-ranked Kremlin-Hillsdale (4-0) in the first game of the festival before falling 12-0 to Class A’s sixth-ranked Shattuck.

For the two festival games, El Reno went 10-of-38 from the plate for a .263 team batting average. C.C. Medders (.400), Chenoa White (.400) and Kira Taber (.333) led the team with two hits each.

El Reno High School’s cross country team had a male-only look over the weekend with no female runners taking part in the Eighth Annual Mike Driskill Turkey Creek Classic.

The boys team, running the 5-kilometer (3.1-mile course) at Turkey Creek Golf Course in Hennessey, posted a seventh-place finish with an average time of 21 minutes and five seconds and an overall time of 1:45:25.

Jacob Long led El Reno with a time of 19:35 to place 15th overall. Cole Strong was close behind in 19th place with a time of 20:02.