Sandite Volleyballers Continue as Teammates in College

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PAyton Robbins

Three former Sand Springs volleyball players are still teammates even after moving up to the college level.

Teyha Johnson (Class of 2022), Charley Fahland (2022), and Payton Robbins (2023) are all continuing their volleyball careers together at Friends University and recently wrapped up an 8-25 season.

Johnson played in 10 matches this season, recording 32 assists, 5 aces, and 9 digs.

Fahland appeared in 3 matches, recording 1 assist and 4 digs.

Robbins earned a starting role as a freshman and played in 17 matches, recording 120 kills, 1 assist, 17 digs, and 14 blocks.

In addition to their on-court success, they’re also having success in the classroom. Johnson and Fahland both earned the 2023 Daktronics NAIA Scholar-Athlete award for maintaining a 3.5 GPA. Robbins was ineligible because she’s still a true freshman.

Gloria Mutiri (2020) is in her first season with the USC Münster professional team in Germany. She also played pro ball in Puerto Rico last season after graduating from the University of Oregon.

USC Münster is 1-6 on the season and sitting eighth in the Bundesliga but will have a big opportunity for a win on December 2nd at VC Neuwied (0-7).

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Charley Fahland

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Teyha Johnson

Sandite Weekly Sports Roundup: Basketball Sweeps Roughers, Athletes Sign LOIs

Sandite basketball swept the Muskogee Roughers Friday night with the varsity boys winning 72-65 while the girls won 63-41.

The 6A-East No. 6 Lady Sandites (12-5, 5-3) never trailed against No. 14 Muskogee. It was still a close game at 39-31 entering the fourth but the Sandites steamrolled the Roughers 24-10 in the final stanza.

Hailey Jackson scored 24 points to lead all scorers, Taiona “Yanni” Morris added 13, Sakauri Wilson had 9, and three different Sandites scored 5 apiece.

“We’re starting to play better as a unit,” said head coach Josh Berry. “We have more people stepping up.”

Sand Springs will have to cover six games over the final two weeks after meetings with Bartlesville and Booker T. Washington were postponed due to weather. This is the second time the Washington game has been rescheduled.

“This is our second game in 17 days,” said Berry. “It’s a bit different from when we start the season out with eight games in like 14 days.”

“We’re rested and we’re ready to go. It’s nothing that we can control so we just try to get better.”

The No. 11 Sandite boys (9-8, 2-6) snapped a five-game conference skid and got back above .500 overall with a win over the No. 15 Roughers (3-13, 0-9).

The Sandites led 34-27 at halftime but a seven-point run put the Roughers up 45-44 entering the final stanza.

Jamarian Ficklin tied it for the final time at 52-52 but Kooper Kelly hit a pair of free throws and layed up on a steal to put his team ahead for the final three minutes of the game.

Kelly tied his career-high with 20 points to lead all scorers while Luke Hooper also had a career night with 15 points.

“Any conference win, especially on the road, is a good feeling,” said head coach Eric Savage.

“In the past we’ve kind of lost our composure. A couple of times this wear we gave up the lead and never got it back. We showed some growth tonight and were able to weather the storm and get back in control late in the fourth quarter.”

Sand Springs will travel to Bixby on Tuesday and Bartlesville on Thursday before hosting Sapulpa Friday night.

Signing Day

School may have been canceled, but the festivities couldn’t be stopped Wednesday morning at the Ed Dubie Field House. Sand Springs celebrated 10 student-athletes who signed letters of intent to continue their careers at the collegiate level.

Many of the players will get to enjoy Sand Springs connections on their new rosters.

Kyle Morrall, Jacob Blevins, and Drake Fain signed with Northwestern Oklahoma State University to play Division II football. There they will be reunited with former Sandite assistant coach Jason Medrano, who recently took over as Offensive Coordinator for the Rangers.

Brody Rutledge signed to play Division II football at Northeastern State University. There he will join former Sand Springs teammates Gabe Brown, Landon Hendricks, and Blake Jones.

Dominic Ornelas and Jabe Schlehuber signed to play junior college baseball together at Northern Oklahoma College in Enid.

Carson Sargent signed to play Division II soccer at Rogers State University, where she will join former teammates Ali Day and Karsen Lynch.

Payton Robbins signed to play NAIA volleyball at Friends University in Kansas, where she’ll be reunited with Sandites Tehya Johnson, Charley Fahland, and Kasidy Holland.

Madori Bland signed with the stunt team at Drury University, a Division II program in Missouri.

Coleman Hight signed to play NAIA golf at Southwestern College in Kansas.

Baseball

Freshman quarterback Easton Webb has been getting lots of attention as a football prospect, but on Friday he announced his commitment to Oklahoma State University as a baseball player before ever playing a varsity minute.

Sand Springs will kick off the preseason with a home scrimmage against Sapulpa on the 16th at 4:30 p.m.

Girls Powerlifting

The Sand Springs girls powerlifting team took second place at the All-American Lift-a-thon in Shawnee Saturday with two champions. The Sandites had 137 team points, just behind Choctaw with 141.

Madison Thompson won the 220 weight class, sweeping all three events. She benched 140, squatted 285, and deadlifted 295.

Jaden Jordan won at heavyweight, taking first in squat at 335 pounds, first in deadlift at 375, and third in bench at 155.

Melani Skelly placed third, Gracie Worthington placed fourth, and Bailey Doughty and Kiyah Dover placed fifth.

Sandites Place 5th at Union IceFighter Open with 7 Champions

The Sand Springs wrestling team took fifth place at the 31st annual Union IceFighter Open on Saturday with seven champions, three runners up, and 16 total medalists.

Jayden Pait and Jesse Moore won in the high school boys division; Laila Mirza won in high school girls; Jaxon Grigsby, Kaden Pope, Matthew Moore, and Corbin Wooley won in boys’ junior high.

Pait pinned his first opponent at 138 and won three straight decisions from there, beating Union’s Thomas Toteh 6-4 in the finals.

Moore pinned his first two foes at 150, then edged out Jaiden Johnson 2-1 in the semifinals before majoring Brett Cornett 10-2 in the finals.

Mirza pinned all four of her opponents at 120 pounds.

Grigsby pinned three of his four opponents at 98 points and outscored his opponents 27-6.

Pope recorded two pins and a tech fall at 119, outscoring his foes 35-0.

Moore had two falls at 126 and defeated defending junior high state champion Rayvon McClellan 6-3 in the finals.

Wooley pinned three of his opponents at 132 pounds and outscored his foes 24-5.

Gracie Young was runner up at 110; Kasen McAffrey was runner-up at 140; Sawyer Briscoe was runner-up at 89; and Chandler Copeland was runner-up at 80.

Kayden Worthington was third at 132 with five pins. Aayla Asher also placed third, and Brody Ensten, Kelsi Hilton, and Lyla Waldren placed fourth.

Volleyball

Charles Page High School senior Payton Robbins recently signed a letter of intent to play volleyball at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas.

Robbins set the known school record in single-season kills at 290 this season and led the team in aces.

She will be joining former Sand Springs teammates Tehya Johnson, Charley Fahland, and Kasidy Holland, who are all freshmen at the NAIA private school.

Sandite Volleyball Downs Sapulpa 3-1

Sandite Volleyball defeats Sapulpa in Highway 97 Rivalry play.

The Highway 97 Rivalry trophy is back in Sand Springs.

The 6A No. 15 Sand Springs volleyball team (8-6, 1-4) recorded its first conference win of the season, 3-1, Tuesday night at 5A No. 6 Sapulpa (13-11, 1-4) in a thriller.

After losing the first set 25-18, the Sandites cleaned up their act and won the next three games 25-18, 25-17, and 25-18.

“My husband lost (the trophy) so I had to go get it back,” joked first-year head coach Skylar Jackson after the match. Jackson took the program over from her husband, Derek, who is now at Claremore.

Sapulpa stormed out to an insurmountable 9-1 lead in the first game after four consecutive Sandite attacks sailed out of bounds to kick off an eight-point run. 

The Sandites totaled 11 errors in the first set, while Stailee Heard and Wrigley Adkisson combined for nine kills. Jayden Smith tallied five kills for the Sandites. 

Game two was all tied up at 15-15 till the Sandites ran away with things late in the set. Sand Springs only committed six errors and that proved to be the difference maker. Payton Robbins recorded six kills and two aces for the Sandites.

In game three the Sandites only led 19-16 before winning six of the final seven rallies. Hannah McKelvey’s ace secured the win and this time it was Layla Lenex leading the set with five kills.

Robbins played her best in game four with seven kills and two aces and Lenex won a thrilling final rally on a tipped ball.

Six different Sandites recorded kills in the match, led by Robbins with 20, Lenex with 16, and Smith with 12.

“Our setters do a really great job of making sure all of our hitters are involved,” said Jackson. 

McKelvey recorded a team-high 24 assists and Allie Wright had 18. Olivia DeWitt had a team-high 17 digs and Evyn Morrow added 12.

Robbins was the star of the night with 16 digs and four aces to complement her attacking prowess. 

“She’s the calm in the middle of the storm,” said Jackson. “She’s not a real high emotional player. She doesn’t get real down, she doesn’t get real up. She’s kind of the even tone of our team, so for her to come out and have a good night is important. It’s really important for our team.”

Stailee Heard, an OSU basketball commit, led all scorers with 22 kills, but Adkisson was the only other Chieftain in double digits with 10.  

Sand Springs has now won eight of the last ten meetings with Sapulpa.

“This game is kind of big on its own because it is a rivalry, but we have a tough tournament coming up so it was even more important for us to gain some momentum before going into our tournament,” said Jackson.

The Sandites will play No. 6 Owasso (12-9) at 10:00 a.m. Friday in the first round of the Ram Invitational in a rematch of their 3-0 conference loss. 

They will also play No. 4 Edmond Memorial (16-4) and Southmoore (7-11) in Friday’s pool play. They previously defeated Southmoore 2-1 at the Sandite Invitational.

Bracket play will begin at 10:00 a.m. Saturday with two guaranteed matches.

Sandite Sports Weekly Roundup: Volleyball and Softball Suffer Tough Week

The 14th-ranked Charles Page High School volleyball team has lost five matches in a row, but it’s the way they lost their last match that has coach Skylar Jackson excited.

The Sandites (6-6) fell 3-0 to 4A No. 1 Regent Prep (17-3) Thursday night at the Ed Dubie Field House, but the last two sets were neck and neck.

After winning game one 25-16, the Rams prevailed by close margins of 26-24 and 27-25 for the sweep.

“We’ve really been struggling with this feeling of being second best,” said Jackson. “We’re in a tough class. 6A is tough, so the history has kind of been middle of the road. We’ve really had to work hard against the mentality of being second best.”

“In the last couple of matches it really showed; we really struggled with that. But today, even though we did lose, I think we stayed up much better than we have in our last couple of matches.”

The Sandites have gone through the gauntlet over the past two weeks, falling in 3-0 sweeps to No. 4 Owasso, No. 7 Bixby, and No. 2 Broken Arrow.

The Tigers (13-2, 4-0) dismantled Sand Springs 25-14, 25-7, and 25-8 on Tuesday, dropping the Sandites to 0-4 in Frontier Valley conference play.

Regent Prep started to run away with things in the first set, scoring most of their kills on tipped balls while the Sandites’ power hitters struggled with accuracy early on.

“We made one switch, I put Jayden Smith on the outside,” said Jackson. “But I think we served tougher and kept them out of system. They were unable to get their big hitter the ball as often, or as prime of a set, and that played in our favor.”

“We did adjust to the tip. Obviously they kind of go to that pretty often if they’re off in any sort of way, so we picked that up quite a bit.”

The adjustments worked well, taking the next two sets to extra rallies.

Sand Springs trailed by as much as 16-11 in game two before surging back to a 22-21 lead before University of Central Arkansas-commit Ella Drake scored back-to-back kills for the win.

In the final game the Sandites were down 21-13 before rattling off an eight-point streak, highlighted by some aggressive blocking from Payton Robbins and Averi Tippit.

The decisive point ended up being an ace from Ellen Jenkins that was nearly a service error, just barely rolling up over the net and dropping on the other side.

“I’m just proud of our girls for staying up even though we lost the first and the second,” said Jackson. “We were down a bunch in the third and still rallied, so I’m proud of them for staying up and not just giving it away.”

Robbins scored 8 kills to lead the Sandites and added 10 digs. Olivia DeWitt recorded a team-high 17 digs, Hannah McKelvey had 15 assists, and Layla Lenex had 5 blocks and 4 kills. Sophomore Josie Myers also impressed with 6 kills.

“I told them you always want to work hard because even if you lose, it’s so worth it.,” said Jackson. “If you give it your best and at the end of the day they still get the best of you, then that’s okay. You’re still going to be proud of what you did out there, so they continue to work hard for their teammates.”

Drake scored 17 kills and 2 aces for the Rams, while Meg Goodwin and Ellen Jenkins added 7 kills and 3 aces apiece.

Sand Springs will get a week to recover before traveling to Pryor (2-13) Thursday.

Softball

After Monday’s “Youth Night” game against Bixby was rained out, the Sandites brought the heat to district-leading Jenks (12-2, 7-0) on Tuesday’s Alumni Night game.

Sand Springs (8-8, 2-3) fell in a close 6-4 affair after battling back from a 6-1 second-inning deficit.

Ashyln Clark, Jaden Jordan, Kenzie King, and Addison Tuttle scored for the Sandites.

Addie Hughes (4-7) and Kelsi Hilton (4-1) combined for 12 hits and 9 strikeouts from the circle.

After the game, the Sandites celebrated their many former players who were in attendance.

Sand Springs will return to action Tuesday at home with a district-double header against the combined team of Tulsa Memorial and Booker T. Washington (0-12, 0-4) at 5:00 p.m. for Senior Night. They will also host Bartlesville (9-6, 3-2) on Thursday.

Football

The Sandite 8th graders won their season opener 20-6 at Muskogee while the freshmen posted a 32-0 shutout against the Roughers. Varsity football is taking a bye week to prepare for Bixby on the 9th.

Sandite Sports Weekly Roundup:

Softball

The Charles Page High School fast-pitch softball team (8-7, 2-2) picked up an 11-3 road win at Union (3-12) but stumbled in district action, falling 7-0 to Stillwater (10-2, 3-1) and 5-3 to Bartlesville (7-5, 3-1) last week.

Olivia Alexander hit two doubles, Jaden Jordan hit a triple, and the Sandites combined for 12 hits Monday against the RedHawks. Ashlyn Clark scored a team-high three runs, while Jordan brought in four RBI. Kelsi Hilton (4-1) struck out four for the win, surrendering seven hits.

Addie Hughes (4-6) struck out an impressive nine batters in Tuesday’s home game against the defending district champions, but surrendered 10 hits while the Sandites only accounted for three.

Sand Springs had a strong offensive showing at Bartlesville, out-hitting the Bruins 10 to six, but stranded nine in the loss. Abby Glasglow was 3-of-4 at the plate and Jordan hit her sixth home run of the season.

The Sandites will host Bixby (6-5, 3-3) on Monday at 5:30 for Youth Night. Any students wearing their youth team jerseys or softball camp shirts will receive free admission.

On Tuesday they will host Jenks (11-2, 6-0) at 5:30 for Alumni Night. Former players will receive free admission and will be recognized during the game with a group photo immediately following the game.

Volleyball

No. 14 Sandite Volleyball (6-4, 0-3) is still looking for its first conference win after a tough 3-0 loss to No. 6 Bixby (8-3, 3-1) on Tuesday.

The Spartans won sets of 25-17, 25-23, and 25-12 behind 21 kills and 8 aces from senior star Olivia Vance.

Leading the Sandites were Payton Robbins with six kills, Hannah McKelvey with 10 assists, and Olivia DeWitt with 12 digs.

Sand Springs will travel to No. 3 Broken Arrow (11-2, 3-0) on Tuesday before hosting 4A No. 1 Regent Prep (15-3) on Thursday.

Cross Country

The Sand Springs cross country teams competed in the Owasso Ram Relays Thursday at Mohawk Park.

Chloe Grona placed third in the junior high 1.5-mile run, finishing in 9:56.02, followed by Josie Grona in 13th place in 10:42.89.

The varsity teams ran in a relay-style 6-mile competition. The girls placed 34th out of 44 teams with a time of 50:43.42. The boys placed 35th out of 72 teams in 39:00.09.

The Sandites will return to action Saturday at the Sapulpa Westside Sports Complex at 8:15 a.m.