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.

Girls Cross Country returns lots of experience, boys turn to underclassmen

While the starting lineup for the Sand Springs girls cross country team will look very familiar this season, the boys will be filled with new faces.

After placing 14th at last year’s Regional cross country meet, the Lady Sandites will be returning all but one member from their A team, while the boys will look to replace four members of last year’s 13th place lead card.

“We’ve got a young team, but we’ve got some talented young guys coming up,” said head coach Mike Burdge. “Last year we were coming back from the COVID stuff. We were a little shy in numbers, but we’re picking up a little bit this year.”

The girls will return Gracie Gifford, Lauren Foster, Madison Chambers, and Laila Mirza from last year’s Regional lineup, while the boys will return only Iyon Hood and Michael Johnson.

“We’ve got a couple of kids that are promising. I don’t know what we’ll see from them this year but through the next couple of years we’re going to be moving up so it looks pretty good.”

Taigh Wright and Rafael Huff will likely be immediate contributors after placing 13th and 19th respectively at last year’s junior high conference meet.

The girls will get a boost from freshman Maddyx Hampton, who finished in the top half of last year’s conference meet. “She’s a real solid runner, she’ll do good,” said Burdge. 

The Sandites started their speed camp this week, earlier than usual. In the past, Burdge has focused more on building his runners’ conditioning through August. He hopes the change will pay off this fall.

Adding numbers has been a recurring challenge for the program over the years as more and more athletes have begun to specialize in other sports.

Burdge has been trying to stress the conditioning and endurance benefits that cross country can bring to athletes’ primary sports with minimal risk of injury.

“I think we’ll be back on track next year. Back to where we were a couple of years ago on building the program. The middle school has been really picking up in numbers the last two years, so that’s going to start showing in the high school the next couple of years.”