American Heritage Bank to sponsor 2022 Highway 97 Rivalry footbal lgame

This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.

One hundred years into one of Oklahoma’s most heated high school football rivalries, Sand Springs and Sapulpa are finally getting the respect their annual game deserves.

Players, coaches, and administrative officials from both schools came together Thursday afternoon at Sapulpa’s American Heritage Bank to announce a new partnership between the bank and the two school districts for the 2022 meeting.

“We missed a couple of years along the way, but this coming season will be the 96th edition of the rivalry,” said Sapulpa Athletic Director Michael Rose. “We’re going to see who comes out to take the lead.”

The American Heritage Bank Highway 97 Rivalry game will kick off August 26th at 7:00 p.m. at Sapulpa’s George F. Collins Stadium and will be broadcast state-wide on Cox Yurview.

“We’re very excited about this,” said Rose. “We’re thankful for American Heritage Bank and their partnership.”

“Having someone back us like American Heritage Bank is awesome. It shows the importance of the rivalry. It shows the history of the rivalry. It just shows how big it really is, being the third-longest standing rivalry in the state of Oklahoma. I think it was due.”

“American Heritage Bank is a longtime sponsor of both of our programs,” said Sand Springs Athletic Director Rod Sitton.

“We came up with the idea about a year ago to start putting this together, and we approached them to see if they would be interested in naming rights. We talked to (American Heritage Marketing Director) Tami Fleak and they just jumped on it.”

The naming rights sponsorship is currently only a one-year deal, but Sitton says he hopes that the partnership will continue in the future.

The Sapulpa-based bank purchased a brand new traveling trophy for the rivalry, only two years after the first-ever trophy was introduced. Sand Springs will be keeping the previous trophy after winning a 53-26 meeting last year, but Sapulpa players were quick to quip that they would be taking home the new trophy.

The bank will also be making donations to both athletic programs prior to the season-opening zero-week game next month. 

“This is one of our marquee games of the season,” said third-year Sandite coach Bobby Klinck. “It’s a big game for our community and it’s a big game for our players.”

“It’s a great way to tie our two communities together,” said second-year Sapulpa coach Tim Holt Jr. 

“We all know what this rivalry is all about, and it’s something that both sides talk about all the time. So we’d like to embrace that and tie the two communities together the best that we can.”

The history of the game dates back to a warm September evening in 1922 when Sapulpa football coach Virgil Jones led his Chieftains to a 36-0 shutout win, but he couldn’t have known then what a historic occasion it would come to be.

Sapulpa and Sand Springs have met every year since 1930 and Sapulpa has led the rivalry since 1945. Sand Springs, however, has won seven of the last eight, including both games under coach Klinck.

Both teams are looking to capitalize on a season-opening win as they look to build on last season’s success. The Sandites went 8-4 last year in Class 6A-II, while Sapulpa went 6-5 in 5A.

The trash talk began before the conference had even officially begun, as Klinck quipped at Holt that the “classier” Sandites had arrived in blue jeans and boots instead of athletic shorts, like the Chieftain players. 

Members of the bank wore shirts representing the two teams and one media member in attendance cracked jokes about the Sandite mascot. For the record, it’s a Minuteman, not a sand flea. 

Sand Springs senior linebacker Drake Fain predicted a final score of 62-7, which will almost certainly put some fire in the veins of any Sapulpa players who read this story. 

“We’ve hated that town and they’ve hated us,” said Fain. “That’s just how it is.”

“My dad told me that Sapulpa is the worst town and school in the state. I believe it and I will forever say that.”

Of course, all the smack talk is good natured, and the two communities are closer than either side will admit.

“This is a game that both sides want to win extremely badly just because we’re so close together, and the kids know each other and the coaches know each other,” said Holt. 

“Coach Klinck and I have coached together (at Broken Arrow). We’ve known each other for a lot of years and we want it to be a great football game and great for both communities at the same time.”

“Everybody loves football and the brand of football in northeast Oklahoma is unbelievable and it really helps put both teams on the map as far as exposure for the kids and all that stuff, playing on TV. It’s something that we always look forward to.”

Of course, there will be plenty of pressure on Holt to make up for last year’s loss. It’s a longstanding tradition in both communities to tell new coaches, “it doesn’t matter if you don’t win a single other game, you have to win Highway 97 Rivalry.”

As for American Heritage, the bank couldn’t be happier to be involved.

“It was a no-brainer for us to go ahead and pull together our resources inside the bank and work with these teams,” said Fleak. 

“You can see from my shirt where my loyalties lie, but there’s a lot of great people in both communities and we just want to support these kids.”

Her shirt was Chieftain blue, by the way. Now the bank will have its own in-house rivalry to contend with as they try to figure out who gets to sit in the suite during the game.

Ty Bowling hired as next Sandite Wrestling head coach

This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.

Great jobs don’t stay available for long. Less than a month after the resignation of Jarrod Patterson, Charles Page High School has found its new wrestling coach. 

Sand Springs Athletic Director Rod Sitton confirmed Thursday the hiring of 2020 5A Coach of the Year Ty Bowling, pending the approval of the Sand Springs Board of Education.

“I’ve always wanted to coach in 6A,” said Bowling. “I just felt like this was the best time to go up and accept that challenge.”

Bowling was previously the head coach at Glenpool, where he coached three individual State Champions and led the Warriors to five district championships. 

The Warriors won three consecutive district titles from 2020 to 2022, were Regional Runners-Up in 2021, and have placed among the top four teams in 5A each of the last three seasons.

“We’ve had a lot of success over the past four or five years. We have awesome kids; they really bought into what me and the coaches were selling. They’re the ones who made that program what it has been.”

Leaving his hometown wasn’t an easy decision for the Glenpool alumnus, who has spent his entire professional career at his alma mater. 

“Being an alumni and building this program over the last 16 years, it was definitely a difficult decision,” said Bowling. “It wasn’t a decision I made within a couple of hours. I took my time on it.”

In addition to being 6A, Sand Springs was also a desirable program to join due to its longstanding wrestling tradition.

The Sandites have won two State titles and a Dual State title as recently as 2017 along with four State Runner-Up finishes, 17 District titles, and 41 individual State titles.

“I know Sand Springs has great wrestling tradition,” said Bowling. “I know they have great support within the community, with the parents, within the school.”

“A lot of wrestling programs - they’re fighting for everything they can get. I think Sand Springs - they’re going to do everything they can to support the wrestling program and make sure it’s got what it needs to try and succeed.”

In addition to wrestling, Bowling was also the running backs coach at Glenpool, though he expects to just be focused on wrestling at Sand Springs. 

“We didn’t discuss any football stuff, I think I’ll be all in on wrestling and we’re working on trying to build a girls’ program as well.”

Bowling met with the Sand Springs wrestling team this past week and will be getting together with the assistant coaches soon to begin the transition.

“They know how to build a good program, so I can learn from them and they can learn a little bit about my philosophy.”

He will also be coordinating with the Keystone Kids wrestling club that operates out of CPHS to see how he can assist with the town’s youth program.

Bowling currently lives in Kiefer with his wife, and the two don’t have any immediate plans to move closer to the Sand Springs area. He will be teaching outdoor education at CPHS. 

Patterson, the Sandites’ previous coach, resigned after four seasons with a 29-19 record, two district titles, and two top-ten finishes at State to take an assistant coaching position at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

Jarrod Patterson resigns for assistant coaching position at Appalachian State University

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This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.

For only the third time this century, Charles Page High School is looking for a wrestling coach. 

After four seasons as head coach, Jarrod Patterson has resigned to take a job as an assistant coach at Appalachian State University, an NCAA Division I program in Boone, North Carolina.

“It’s a tough place to leave because obviously there’s a lot of support and a lot of wrestling people here, and our family’s real close, but we just decided (to do this) while we’re still young,” said Patterson.

“I’ve been wanting to coach at the college level for the last couple of years so we decided if we’re not going to do it now, it won’t ever happen.”

Patterson took over the Sandite program in 2018 following the retirement of Kelly Smith. His teams went 29-19 in duals and won two district championships, placing 7th, 10th, 18th, and 13th at the State tournament with 23 qualifiers.

His stint at Sand Springs was his first as a head coach and he was previously an assistant at Brown University in Rhode Island.

“I coached for a year at Brown and really enjoyed it,” said Patterson. “Brown wasn’t a super good fit for me there. The location wasn’t great, being so far away from family and my girlfriend (now wife).”

The App State program has been trending upwards, and went 9-2 this season, placing second in the Southern Conference and 28th at the NCAA championship.

“I talked to some of my college buddies and a couple of them sent (the job listing) to me and told me about their coach, JohnMark, and said he was a good guy to work for,” said Patterson.

JohnMark Bentley has led the Mountaineers to a 51-5 conference record in the last eight seasons and has a 122-73-1 record over the last 13 years with six SoCon regular-season titles. He recently signed a contract extension through 2027.

According to Patterson, the school recently added three scholarship positions to the wrestling roster and is expected to add more in the coming years to help make the program even more competitive. 

“It’s a program that’s kind of on the rise right now, so I think it’s a good place to be.”

Patterson will finish out the school year at Sand Springs before the family moves to North Carolina on June 1st. His wife has also secured a new job in Boone. 

He informed his team before practice earlier this week that he wouldn’t be back next year.

“It’s a hard thing to do, to tell them that I’m not going to be the coach, but I also told them it was an opportunity for me. It was something I’ve been dreaming of, and we preach to the kids to chase their dreams.”

“I have a good relationship with a lot of the kids. We’re together first hour and second hour and they all come hang out in the wrestling room all day long. So I think having that relationship, they understand that it’s an opportunity for me.”

Patterson has nothing but good things to say about Sand Springs, despite leaving. 

“I’m in an awesome high school coaching position. I feel like I have all the resources I need, I have tons of support from parents and alumni. It’s just a great place to coach so leaving a position like this is kind of difficult.”

“It’s been great. I’ve had a lot of support. Obviously it’s not my hometown, but I’ve felt like within the last four years it’s kind of grown into my hometown.”

Patterson inherited the Sandites at an interesting time after the sudden retirement of 16-year head coach Kelly Smith, just a year removed from a State Championship. Smith, who now operates a Farmer’s Insurance agency in Sand Springs, has also stayed on as an assistant coach and his son is a junior on the team.

“Kelly Smith has been great. He’s helped me through that transition period,” said Patterson.

“(Earl) Shockley and TeDon (Fleischman) have been awesome with me. It’s hard to leave those guys as well. And obviously we’ve got some great junior high coaches. I had a good group of coaches to coach with and that made it hard to leave, as well.”

“I think the biggest challenge in the beginning was not having relationships with the kids, parents, and alumni. They don’t really know what to expect from me in the beginning. They don’t know my personality, how hard I work, or my goals.”

Patterson views his time in Sand Springs as a period of major personal growth.

“Those who were around me in the beginning know that I’m an introverted person by nature. Having a head coaching spot, I feel like it’s been really good for me as far as learning speaking skills, learning to fundraise, learning communication skills, doing a lot of behind-the-scenes stuff, working with kids. Kids have all different kinds of emotions, different personalities.”

“I got a lot of experience as far as working with kids individually, communication with parents, fans, kids as a whole. I feel like I’ve definitely grown in the last four years.”

“Coach Patterson has been an integral part of Sandite Wrestling,” said Sand Springs Athletic Director Rod Sitton.

“We will miss him absolutely. He has been given an opportunity that few will ever get and we wish him and his family all the best at Appalachian State.”

As for the next head coach at Sand Springs, they’ll have a great community to step into and benefit from. 

“I think we have an awesome group of coaches from youth to junior high to high school, that were on the same page,” said Patterson. 

“I think we’re in a position where somebody can step in and they’re in a good position to really just jump right in and hit the ground running. The kids work hard, they want to win, they’re disciplined. They’re all very respectful kids. It’s just a fun group of athletes and coaches to be around, and it’s a fun group of admin as well. I had a lot of support as far as that goes as well.”

Sandite Volleyball coach Derek Jackson moving on to Claremore

Derek Jackson speaks to Jacelyn Smith during a match against Broken Arrow in 2019. (Photo by Scott Emigh).

This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.

The winningest volleyball coach in Sand Springs history, percentage-wise, is moving on to greener pastures.

After a three-year stint as Charles Page High School’s head coach, Derek Jackson is moving to Claremore to take over one of the top programs in Class 5A. 

While Jackson has nothing but good things to say about his time in Sand Springs, the Claremore opportunity was too good to resist.

“The biggest thing was just the teaching opportunity that I got,” said Jackson, who has been teaching eighth-grade science at Clyde Boyd Middle School. 

“I went to college for fitness and physical education, and that’s kind of what I’m going to be able to get to teach at Claremore. So I’m excited to get to teach what I actually went to college for, what I think I can do a better job at.”

On top of that, Jackson and his wife Skylar, a Broken Arrow assistant coach, are expecting their first child.

“I think it’s going to be a little less stressful, especially with a kid on the way.”

The two currently live in Broken Arrow, so the commute to Claremore won’t be any worse than his previous drive to Sand Springs. 

The Red Zebras are coming off a 24-17 season and State Tournament appearance under Kimberly Mabbott, who went 30-41 in her two year tenure as head coach.

Jackson came to Sand Springs by way of Clinton, where he was head coach for two years. A Kellyville native, the Sand Springs job brought him closer to home while giving him the opportunity to coach in Oklahoma’s largest classification.

Jackson went 51-49 overall during his three years in Sand Springs. His 19-15 run in 2020 and 18-14 first season rank as the second and third-best seasons in school history.

“I think early on it was just trying to change their identity and how they saw themselves,” said Jackson. 

“They had a couple of years where it was pretty rough there. I don’t think they were excited to take on big challenges like big teams like Broken Arrow and Bixby. So just getting them to the point where they thought they were winners, I think that was our first step.”

This year the Sandites finished 14-20, winning their home tournament for the second time in the past three years. Those are the team’s only two titles since 2010. 

Jackson is the only Sand Springs coach to leave the school with a winning record. Sydney Bond went 7-18 in 2018, Janna Green went 65-78 from 2014 to 2017, and Caleb Horton went 37-93 from 2010 to 2013. Records from before 2009 are hard to come by.

Whoever is next up to the plate will have a solid foundation to work from. 

“I think Rod (Sitton), hat’s off to him,” Jackson said of the Sand Springs Athletic Director. “He really trusted me from the get-go of really everything. I mean fundraising to scheduling to player management.”

“He really trusted me to do just about everything and kind of backed me rather well. So I really appreciate that, and I think it allowed me to be me and helped get those kids and the program where we wanted it.”

“I think I’ve set a lot of groundwork for the next person to come in because of not just focusing on varsity, but you know, really doing a lot of little kids camps and pushing to start that seventh grade program. Just kind of trying to set up long-term success. I think they’ve got a good base under themselves.”

The program has been trending upwards over the past decade, despite the occasional downward swings due to large graduating classes or brutal schedules. 

Claremore, meanwhile, will be getting its new coach sooner rather than later. After closing out the semester at Sand Springs, Jackson will be taking over at Claremore following Christmas Break. 

“He did a great job for us,” said Sitton. “We hate to see him go, but nobody’s going to fault somebody for bettering themselves and going to better opportunities.”

Sandite Roundup: Shelli Brown celebrates 600th win in 25th season

25th-year Sandite Softball Head Coach Shelli Brown is presented with a commemorative ball for her 600th win by the Class of 2022 seniors.

A version of this story was originally published in the Sand Springs Leader.

Shelli Brown has been the head softball coach at Charles Page High School since before her current class of seniors was even born. In fact, she’s been the head coach since before some of her assistant coaches were born.

Now in her 25th season as a Sandite, Coach Brown is a pillar in the community. 

“Shelli’s an icon in women’s softball at the high school level,” says Sand Springs Athletic Director Rod Sitton. “She started her career here, hopefully she ends her career here. She’s not only a great coach, but a great leader and a great example for the young ladies that go through here. It’s been a real privilege to have her here and work with her, and also be her boss. She’s just a great person all around.”

On Tuesday, August 24th, the team celebrated Brown’s 600th career win in fast pitch. The milestone came in a 14-6 rout of Adair on Thursday, August 19th at the Rogers State festival in Claremore. They also beat Lincoln Christian 11-2 in the first game of the festival.

Owning a 603-326 record with 10 regional championships, two academic state championships, two district championships, and one conference championship, Brown has been one of the most successful coaches in school history in any sport. Under her guidance, 32 sandites have received All-State accolades and at least 60 have signed to play at the next level.

“It’s not about excellence just in softball itself, but it’s also about academic excellence,” added District Superintendent Sherry Durkee. “Personally, I’m super proud of the two academic state championships.” 

Prior to the Tuesday-night doubleheader against Enid, Brown’s senior class presented her with a commemorative game ball signed by the entire team, along with flowers and balloons. Then they gave her a 601st and 602nd win by drubbing the Pacers 20-3 and 3-1.

Raegan Rector went 3-for-3 at the plate with five RBI and two doubles in the first game, Mikenna Stephens was 3-of-4 with four RBI, and Kelsi Hilton was 3-of-4 with four runs. 

With temperatures nearing 100℉, the bats slowed down in game two, and the Sandites actually needed a fifth-inning comeback. Trailing 1-0, Taylor Skipper tied it up with a single to score Ashlyn Clark, then Skipper and Jolee McNally scored on an error for the lead.

Nataley Crawford pitched eight strikeouts and only three hits in the first game, and Hilton got the win in game two. 

The Sandites followed it up with a 12-4 district beatdown of Bartlesville on Thursday that saw Hilton go 3-of-4 at the plate with a triple, two runs, and four RBI, while also striking out four batters in four innings from the circle. Lauren Hammock was also 3-of-4 with three runs and two RBI.

Sandite Softball is now 5-3 on the season and will continue district action on the road with a Thursday game at Bixby (9-2, 5-0).

CPHS Volleyball

The Class 6A No. 13 ranked Sandite Volleyball team (7-4) suffered a 3-1 conference loss to No. 3 Broken Arrow (10-3) Tuesday, August 24th at the Ed Dubie Field House.

The Sandites lost sets of 25-15, 25-22, and 25-9, but stole the third set 25-20 for their first game win against the Tigers since 2018.

Payton Robbins scored nine kills with three blocks, 16 digs, and three aces in the loss. Layla Lenex had three kills and five blocks. Tehya Johnson had two kills, two aces, and 23 assists. Jacelyn Smith scored seven kills and two blocks. Charley Fahland had two aces and 17 digs, and Kasidy Holland had seven kills and three digs.

Sandite Volleyball will travel to Regent Prep Thursday at 6:30 p.m.

CPHS Cross Country

The Lady Sandite varsity cross country team placed 11th in a 5K run at Edmond Deer Creek, August 21st, led by Jazmin Lopez in fifth place out of 105 runners with a time of 23:13.98. 

The boys team didn’t have enough runners to place as a team, but Noah Hanlon finished in 26th with a time of 19:13.58.

The elementary girls placed third at Kiefer Saturday, August 28th. Chloe Grona won the one-mile run in 5:52.45, Josie Grona placed third in 6:19.71, and Sophie Grona placed 15th in 7:06.99.