Sand Springs Black places third at Cleveland Junior High Tournament

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

The Sand Springs Junior High Black wrestling team placed 3rd at the Cleveland tournament last month. The White team placed 11th. Together the Sandites had eight placers and three champions. Brendon Wiseley, Hayden Cramer, and Caleb Phillips each won their prospective brackets.

  • 80 - KJ Clark (3-2)
  • 80 - Dylan Luker (3-2) - 4th Place
  • 89 - Connor Lee (1-2)
  • 98 - Hunter Carter (2-1) - Runner-Up
  • 98 - Brendon Wiseley (4-0) - Champion
  • 106 - Hunter Hilger (0-2)
  • 106 - Kyler Clark (3-2)
  • 106 - Jacob Rampy (4-2) - 4th Place
  • 113 - Jacob Reed (1-2)
  • 120 - Jared Jenkins (0-2)
  • 120 - Caleb Phillips (4-0) - Champion
  • 126 - Preston Medlin (2-2) 
  • 132 - Braden Dahl (2-2)
  • 140 - Josh Fincannon (3-2)
  • 140 - Dayvon Taylor (3-1) - Runner-Up
  • 150 - Tegen Campbell (0-2) 
  • 162 - Justin Smith (1-2)
  • 162 - Colton Sanders (2-2) - 4th Place
  • 175 - Robbie Parrish (1-2)
  • 175 - Hayden Cramer (3-0) - Champion
  • 200 - Spencer O'Bryan (0-2)

TEAM Scores

  1. Glenpool A, 159.5
  2. Cleveland A, 151.5
  3. Sand Springs Black, 148
  4. Catoosa A, 138
  5. Newkirk A, 137.5
  6. Morrison, 122
  7. Webster A, 90.5
  8. Union B, 77.5
  9. Claremore B, 74
  10. Barnsdall A, 68
  11. Sand Springs White, 61
  12. Morris A, 34.5
  13. Keys, 29
  14. Glenpool B, 23
  15. Morris b, 20.5
  16. Pawhuska A, 20
  17. Cleveland B, 17
  18. Glenpool C, 16.5
  19. Newkirk B, 8
  20. Claremore C, 7
  21. Holdenville, 4

Haddock scores 26 in Sandites' defeat of #5 Ardmore

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

Photo: Morgan Miller

The Ardmore Holiday Invitational has been a mess of delays, but it hasn't slowed down the Sandite scoring effort.

The whole tournament was pushed back 24 hours due to the blizzards, flooding, tornadoes, and whatever else the Oklahoma weather was throwing at us Sunday and Monday. Then, the Sandites' opening game against Greenhill Prep (12-3) was delayed a further two hours Tuesday night, and Wednesday night's game against the tournament hosts was delayed an hour and a half.

Tuesday night's game against the Dallas-area private school was a back and forth effort till midway through the fourth quarter when the Sandites finally pulled away for a 73-54 win and a 6-0 record. 

At halftime the lead was a mere 36-33.

Three Sandites scored in the double digits--the same three that lead the team overall for the season. Colt Savage led all scorers with 18 points, tying the career-high record he set last season. Not far behind him was fellow sophomore Brooks Haddock with 16 and Kyle Keener with 15.

Greenhill also had three double-digit scorers. Kreitling and Bryant both scored 13 followed by Woods with 11. 


The action continued Wednesday night as the Sandites took on the hosting Ardmore team who had just defeated Western Heights 88-72 the night before. The #5 team in 5A had a 5-3 record going into the game, and Sand Springs was out to spoil it.

Sand Springs got on the board first with a three-pointer from Mack Thompson who tied his season-high with ten points. The two teams were back and forth in scoring, but the Tigers led for most of the first period before Sand Springs began to tie it up towards the end of the quarter. 

Finally, Kyle Keener sank a two and added a free-throw to retake the lead, 19-18. It would only last a moment, however, as Carlos Coppage would nail a three at the buzzer. 

The two teams traded the lead with each of the first three shots of the second period before Thompson, Keener, and Colt Savage scored back-to-back to give their team some wiggle room. 

The Sandites trailed by as much as 4 in the first period, then led by as much as 7 in the second before a sloppy finish gave the Tigers three-straight turnovers to narrow the game to 37-36 going into the half. 

The Sandites missed 15 field goals in the first half and gave up 14 turnovers.

Whatever Coach Savage said to them at half time seemed to work, because the boys only gave up 7 more turnovers in the second half. 

The better offensive effort helped Sand Springs to outscore the Tigers 16-11 in the third, but the beginning of the fourth belonged to Ardmore who tied things up at 55 halfway through the fourth. 

Finally, Sand Springs pulled away, scoring 19 points in the last 4 minutes to ice the cake for a 74-60 win.

Free-throws seemed to be the Tigers' kryptonite as the home team shot 13 of 25 from the line compared to the Sandites' 19 of 26. Ardmore did lead in turnovers, however, giving up the ball only 13 times to the Sandites' 21. 

Brooks Haddock led all scorers with a season-high 26 points, chased by Ardmore's Marvin Johnson with 21. All together, Sand Springs had 4 players in double digits, while Ardmore only managed 2. Jacob Taber also scored a personal season-best with 5 points.

Sand Springs (7-0) will play in the tournament championship Thursday at 2:30.

Sandite of the Week: Daton Fix

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

This week Sandite Pride would like to recognize Daton Fix as Sandite of the Week for his 1st place finish at the prestigious Kansas City Stampede. This is Fix's third win at the annual event, making him only the sixth contender to win it 3 or more times. He won it the last two years at 113 and 126, and this year at 132.

Fix is a two-time state champion and has an undefeated high school record of 86-0 with a 13-0 record this year. He's claimed 15 National Championships, 2 Pan-American Championships, a Junior Olympics Silver Medal, and a World Championship Bronze Medal. 

In the last two years he has wrestled in Bosnia, China, Colombia, Slovakia, and Brazil. He is currently ranked 1st in Oklahoma at 132, 3rd in America at 126, and 9th in America pound-for-pound.

Payton Scott and Lane Lettich lead best Sandite run game in half-decade

By: Scott Emigh, Editor-in-Chief

Sand Springs has had a lot of big names in the running back position, but not often have they had to share the spot. In the past, the Charles Page varsity football team would have one really talented running back who did 90% of the lifting. This season has been a lot different. 

Had Lane Lettich and Payton Scott arrived at different times in school history, it wouldn't be unbelievable for each of them to have well over 1500 yards per season. As it is, the two combine for nearly 2000 yards and nearly 91% of the Sandite ground game.

Lettich is a senior and is the starter at tail back. He's currently sitting at 207 carries for 1059 yards and 17 touchdowns, not to mention his 12-231 and 2 touchdown receiving record this season.  

Lettich is a powerhouse, and is resilient against sturdy defenders. Averaging just over 5 yards-per-carry, the bulk of his carries are head to head against the D-line and battles of strength. Lettich is the go-to guy on 4th and short conversions and goal-line-to-go touchdowns. His longest carry this season came against Stillwater. He needed about 60 yards that game to cross the thousand-mark, and he did it the first time he touched the ball--rushing for 70 yards before getting dragged down in the Pioneer redzone.

Scott is only a sophomore, and one of the only freshman to play last season. Not only did he play, he played well with over 200 rushing yards--the fourth best on the team. This season he has 861 yards on only 112 carries for 8 touchdowns. 

The kid is a juggernaut. He's only 5'6", but once he gets some momentum going, he's gone. Not only is he fast, but he's crafty, and finds the tinniest of holes to blow through and pick up first downs in single plays. He frequently breaks tackles and often drags two or even three defenders for 5+ yards after contact.

Lettich led the ground-game for Sand Springs last season too, but was held to only 823 yards and 5 touchdowns on 169 carries. Not only did Lettich and Scott have to split time with each other, but they also had dual threat QB Conner Sitton and all-purpose Davey Thayer to share the ball with. Those two combined for another 669 yards. 

The problem with having so many great runners to share time with is you don't get your fair shot at breaking records or recording huge games like some runners have in the past when they were the solo threat on the ground. 

Lettich has led the ground game in 10 of 12 games this season, and 9 of 12 games last season. His biggest single-game record was last season when he brought 143 yards against Muskogee. This year he got close against Sapulpa when he ran for 133, but it was Scott with the biggest single-game record this season.

Scott has led the run game twice this season. Once against Guthrie--a game that was cancelled for lightning shortly before the half. Then, in week 7, he hit 200 against Ponca City, the first time a Sandite RB has done so since Terrance Dixon walked all over Tulsa Memorial in 2009 for 334 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Dixon rushed for 1597 yards his senior year and went on to play for Northeastern State University where he ran up a career record of 1945 all-purpose yards for 18 touchdowns over three seasons. 

Raymond McLaurin came close to the 200-mark in 2012 when he ran up 191 yards against Sapulpa and over 1100 for the season.

Both Lettich and Scott will be going into Friday's State Championship game with high hopes as they have the opportunity to bring home the school's first title in 49 years.

The last time the Sandites played Bixby was in week 10 when they dealt the defending state-champs their first shut out since 2007 in a 20-0 rout at Sand Springs. Lettich shouldn't have too hard of a time crossing the 1100 mark and Scott should easily cross 900, but he will need to pull out his second-largest performance of the season if he hopes to cross 1000. The two combined for only 145 yards on 36 carries in the week 10 game.