Sand Springs Bass Teams perform well at SAF State Championship

SUBMITTED\\ Ty Steelman and Braden Millican comprise Sand Springs High School Team #3.

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

Two Sand Springs High School fishing teams competed at the Oklahoma Student Angler Federation State Championship in Muskogee. The event was held on the Arkansas River this past weekend. Ty Steelman and Braden Millican placed eleventh in the event while John Miller and Caden Pennington placed eighteenth out of forty-two boats. 

The SAF State Championship is separate from the Oklahoma Bass Nation trail that the Sand Springs teams typically compete on. The OBN State Championship will be June 25th at Lake Keystone. The top four teams from the SAF State event will advance to the Southern Conference Regional Championship in Shreveport, Louisiana in October.

Steelman and Millican failed to catch the five-fish limit but still outweighed six teams that did net five bass, and were only one pound, five ounces away from qualifying for the Regional. The two possessed the heaviest four-fish net of the whole tournament at eleven pounds, eight ounces. 

SUBMITTED\\Caden Pennington and John Miller comprise Sand Springs High School Team #2. 

Miller and Pennington weren't far behind with four fish weighing nine pounds, three ounces. 

This is the first year Sand Springs has sent a team to the event, which has been going on since 2011. All three teams are expected to take to the waters of Lake Keystone for the OBN State Championship.

Hunter Hilger and Noah Daczewitz comprise a third Sandite team. They didn't participate at the SAF tournament, but they're currently ninth in the State OBN standing. Miller/Pennington are sixteenth in the standings and Steelman/Millican are thirty-sixth after only participating in two of five tournaments.