Sand Springs claims 6A-II championship
EDMOND — Fifty-nine years ago, you could drive a convertible Corvette Stingray off the showroom fl oor at Anthony Chevrolet in Sand Springs for $4,084. You could get a haircut for $1.25. These days, ’Vettes, are substantially more expensive and lately, the talk at the barbershop has been more lively, “Back in ’66 when we won it all,” and “we almost had it in 2015,” because midway into this season, Sand Springs became a city of h ope.
Last week, on a chilly Friday night at Chad Richison Stadium on the campus of UCO in Edmond, hope stepped out of the shadows and onto the scoreboard, 32-27. The entire town watched a halfcentury of, maybe next year, melt into the bright, unbelievabl e truth that the Sandites are state football champions again.
It took three Brock O’Dell touchdowns, 191 Easton Webb passing yards, a goalline stand, a fumble recovery and four quarters of rope-a-dope with the defending champion Yellow Jackets to drag the OSSAA Class 6A-II gold ball out of Choctaw’s clutches and into Sand Springs for the first time since 1966.
Head coach Bobby Klinck was humble.
“It feels very fulfi lling to have been a small part in getting a state title for this community,” he said after the game.
0–2 to 11 straight
If you want to understand everything last Friday night meant, you have to rewind to September, when Sand Springs opened the season by getting punched in the throat twice by 6A-I bluebloods — Bixby 56–7, Owasso 45–17. The schedule a lot of programs do everything to avoid is the same one that Klinck sought Iotu wt.as rough, but it served as a wake-up call for his Sandite athletes.
After Owasso, the arc turned. A shut out of Bishop Kelley. Bartlesville, Capitol Hill and Putnam City West destroyed. Blue-collar wins at Ponca City and Muskogee with running clocks and a belief that started to trend. Then, a 49–0 blanking of Putnam City North. A 35–18 rivalry win over Sapulpa to close out the regular season and secure the district title. Next, the elimination games — Piedmont, and Putnam City again — checks the Sandites were able to cash to get back to the main stage. Was getting there a surprise? Not to everyone.
“This class has been the one people pointed to since they were in seventh grade,” Klinck said. “We lost multiple players to the portal but the ones who stayed are the champions.”
The main stage and the headline act
Before kickoff Friday, thousands of football fans were parking wherever they could around Chad Richison Stadium — yellow and black, and blue and gold painted the bleachers, their collective breaths rising like powerhouse steam in the December air. The weather was cool, the athletes anything but, and the stakes were high, as evidenced by the booming Sand Springs crowd.
Choctaw took the opening kick and played like the defending champs they were. Methodical. Dangerous. Choctaw quarterback Landon Gatson steered the Yellowjackets up to the Sandites’ 39, then threw the first jab of the night — a 39-yard rainbow to Titus Hawk down the sideline for a 7–0 lead.
For a while, it was the script Choctaw needed: long possessions, heavy doses of running back Mayor Morgan, and Sand Springs was forced to start drives deep in their own territory.
But if you’ve watched this Sandite team all year, you already knew they weren’t going to flinch.
Pinned at their own 18 late in the fi rst quarter, the Sandites made space with a jab of their own when Webb dropped back and hit Alex Dudley on a long shot that fl ipped the fi eld all the way to the Choctaw 24.
A few plays later, O’Dell verifi ed the scouting reports and announced his presence in the game, cutting through a crease just off the right side for a 7-yard touchdown. The PAT sailed wide, and Choctaw held a 7–6 lead, but the Sandites had landed a solid counterpunch and sent a message to the Yellowjackets, “Let’s rumble.”
Body blows, then a bomb
Choctaw answered with exactly the kind of clock munching drive that got them to the fi nal. Nine plays. Four minutes. Morgan battering the Sandite front seven with short yardage body blows. A 2-yard touchdown made it 14–6 midway through the second quarter, the Yellowjacket off ensive line was now leaning on people, everybody in blue and gold helmets were nodding like, yes, this is familiar, we’re doing it again. Fans on the Choctaw side were feeling it too.
Then, in a single snap, Webb changed the mood of the entire stadium.
On the first play of the ensuing Sandite possession, the senior quarterback dropped into a secure pocket and let fl y a 64-yard SpaceX launch to Dominic Forbes. Stride, catch, stride, end zone. In one play, the lead shrank from eight to two, 14–12. The two-point try was stuff ed, but the Sandite sideline had a pulse and the Choctaw stands were temporarily silenced. The Charles Page side started to sound like a town shaking off half a century of doubt. Momentum changes sound like that most of the time.
Lead change
The next Choctaw series is the kind you show at clinics when you’re teaching the merits of defensive football. The Sandite defense forced a 3-and-out, punctuated by senior linebacker Grady Harris knifi ng through on third-and-long to bury Gatson back on his own 11.
Short punt. Sand Springs’ ball at the Choctaw 38.
See what I mean about momentum?
From there, Webb scrambled, got flushed, and did something that would give an NFL coach heart burn and a high school coach a heart attack — he lobbed one up to bigplay target Gevauri Hill, who muscled the ball down to the 1-yard line. Two snaps later, with 24 seconds left in the half, O’Dell crashed in from a yard out. Sand Springs claimed their fi rst lead of the night, 18–14.
At halftime, the numbers on the Jumbotron silently spoke of something special, while the stats hinted at their affirmation: Webb, a perfect 8-for-8 for 163 yards and a score; Gatson at 136 yards and a touchdown of his own, Morgan running hard between the tackles and O’Dell already with two short touchdown runs on the ledger.
The third quarter that changed everything because it changed nothing
If the first half was Japanese Hibachi, the third quarter was smoking brisket.
On the second play of the third, Webb was intercepted by Choctaw’s Da’Jon Green, who set the Yellowjackets up at the Sand Springs 30. Eight snaps later, they were staring at fourth-and-goal from the 4. The Sandite defense stiff ened, and Green’s fourth-down pass sailed behind his receiver. Turnover on downs, ball back, but the transmission stuck in neutral.
Sand Springs couldn’t move it either. Punt.
Then came another moment in a quarter that will never light up a highlight reel but it played its role in costing Choctaw the gold ball. The Yellowjackets tried a backwards pass from Gatson to Morgan, who dropped it. Dudley pounced on the loose ball. Another Choctaw threat that exploded on the launch pad.
Scoreboard still 18–14. Drive charts scribbled full of punts, sacks, and turn overs on downs. The dam fi nally broke with just over seven minutes left. After a long, methodical Sand Springs march, the Sandites faced second-and-goal at the 2. With the defense keying on the obvious — O’Dell — Webb popped a little shovel pass to Forbes who was slicing across the formation. Touchdown from two out. Tanner Copeland drilled the extra point. Sand Springs had made it a two possession game, 25-14.
If you were a Choctaw fan in the stands, this was the point where your stomach dropped — where you put your hands on your head and looked more defeated than an OSU fan in September. If you’re from Sand Springs, this is where you started counting downs and bouncing on the balls of your feet.
Choctaw, being Choctaw, refused to go quietly. Morgan burst free on a 28-yard scoring run, and suddenly it was 25–20 with just over six minutes to play. The two-point pass after a pair of penalties fell incomplete, but the Yellowjackets had reminded everybody that the defending champ wasn’t just going to hand over a win tonight.
Choctaw’s defense forced a three-and-out on the next Sand Springs possession, and the yellow-and-blue crowd across the field came back to life and got loud again. Then a holding penalty shortcircuited the Yellowjackets’ next drive, and they punted it back with just over three minutes left until destiny. Hands back on your heads, Yellowjackets.
This is where legends are made
On the first play of the next series, O’Dell took a handoff, bounced into open space, and turned downfield. Forty-seven yards later, he was in the end zone, a blur of white jerseys and frozen breath. Behind him too late — putting Sand Springs up 32–20 with 3:09 left. Copeland’s kick made it a 12-point cushion.
Three touchdowns. Ninety-seven rushing yards. One broken hand, heavily wrapped, that nobody will remember in 20 years when they tell this story, except maybe as a footnote.
And Choctaw still had more in the tank — a 40yard strike from Gatson to Green down the sideline cut it to 32–27 with 2:45 left. Like two boxers in the 15th round, gassed and bloody, but neither giving in.
The Yellowjacket onside kick leaked out of bounds — the opening the Sand Springs O-line and go-to running back had been waiting for all season.
O’Dell took the ball on third-and-short and churned out what could be nine of the most important yards of his life, moving the chains allowing the Sandites to set up in victory formation.
“Our team is player lead,” said Klinck. “They never flinched. I just tried to stay calm and let the players go win it,” Klinck said.
Guess what?
Two knees later, they won it. Fifty-nine years of drought over.
The numbers and the names
Afterward, it could have been any other game. Stadium lights ticked as they cooled, locker room deadbolts clacked shut and the bus brakes hissed as teams left the parking lot. Even the stat line sounded familiar: O’Dell with 11 carries, 97 yards and three touchdowns, plus the closing first down that sealed it. Webb 14-of-20 for 191 yards and two touchdown passes, plus that 64-yard dagger to Forbes that flipped the game in the second quarter. Forbes doing double duty as a deep threat and a goal-line weapon, with scores from 64 and 2 yards out. Hill with the huge near-touchdown catch down to the 1. Harris with the second-quarter sack that short-circuited the Choctaw offense. Dudley with the early explosive catch and the second-half fumble recovery. On the other side, more of the same. Morgan’s 66 rushing yards and two touchdowns and Gatson’s pair of long touchdown passes — 39 yards to Hawk, 40 to Green — showed exactly why Choctaw has lived on the big stage for the last few years.
But this night — this year — little about Sand Springs felt routine. This was the kind of game that reaches backward through time and shakes loose every heartache, every disappointment, every autumn that ended one week too early. Because the truth in Oklahoma high school football is as old and as unforgiving as the newspapers that cover it: you’re either first, or you’re the story people stop telling. And on this night, Klinck and the Sandites wrote their best story.
The people behind the gold ball
“The administration has been with this program from the beginning,” said Klinck. “Athletic Director Rod Sitton is simply the backbone of our athletic department. And Sherry Durkee is, hands-down, the best superintendent in Oklahoma.”
“Our community showed up in a big way! This one’s for them!” he said, acknowledging the crowd that lingered long after the trophy ceremony, kids posing with players, moms posing with athletes, Klinck with his seniors — the class people started talking about when they were still in middle school, when they were just names on youth rosters and X’s on whiteboards.
And what comes next? What’s the outlook for next season?
Klinck would not comment other than to say, “I’m going to enjoy this for at least the rest of the year before thinking about next year,” he said, suggesting that for one December weekend, at least, the play-by-play could stop and the Sandites could just bask in glory decades in the making.
There will be time for rankings and reclassifications and talk about dynasties later. For now, the only numbers that really matter are these: 32–27.
Eleven straight wins.
One gold ball.
And 59 years, finally, put to rest.