Westmoore’s Self signs with Duke
Brian Self, a four-year wrestling standout for Westmoore, will take his mat talents to the next level. The 189-pounder signed a national letter of intent to wrestle for Duke.
“It was between Duke and Stanford,” said Self, who also was a starting fullback and linebacker for the Jaguars’ football squad. “So, either way I was going to be going a long way from home.”
Duke started recruiting Self late last summer and he decided on the Blue Devils after a campus visit. Self will wrestle at 187 or 194 in college.
“It depends on how big I get this summer,” he said.
Little All-City basketball game rosters set
Rosters for the Little All-City boys and girls basketball games have been finalized. The games will be played Monday at Oklahoma Christian. The girls game is slated for a 6:30 p.m. start and the boys game will follow.
Girls
West: Lauren Crenshaw, Newcastle; Alicia Crigler, Millwood; Kelsey Grellner, Okarche; Cami Loveless, Bridge Creek; Kristin Milster, Washington; Brittany Pfaff, Okarche; Lauren Pittman, Washington; Cara Pugh, McGuinness; Paige Pulliam, Newcastle; Bailey Wilkerson, Cashion.
Coaches: Rocky Clarke, Washington; Arnelia Spears, Millwood
East: Christa Beasler, Wellston; Brenna Burnett, Dale; Kaetlyn Carver, Chandler; Gillian Foster, OKC Knights; Kalie Lucas, Harrah; Heather Mullendore, Bethel; Taylor Posey, Wayne; Annie Taylor, Lexington; Kayla Thomas, Harrah; Brittany Watson, Bethel.
Coaches: Benny Burnett, Dale; Curt Knox, Harrah
Boys
West: Blaine Brooks, Blanchard; Kevin Caruthers, McGuinness; Kyle Crossley, Newcastle; Silas Day, Bethany; Tavion Fleeks, John Marshall; Denzel Goudeau, Harding Prep; Jabe Karr, Okarche; Dalton Newsome, Mt. Saint Mary; Han Thun, Oklahoma Christian Academy; Jordan Woods, Kingfisher.
Coaches: Ray West, Okarche; Lenny Hatchett, Mt. Saint Mary.
East: John Cooksey, Star Spencer; Jimmy Doolin, Dale; Cale Jackson, Bethel; Jordan Leggins, Northeast; Kyle Lewis, Bethel; Ryan Shelley, Casady; Adonis Sumlin, Coyle; Kendre Talley, Star Spencer; Detrek Wallace, Wellston; Henry Weaver, Tecumseh.
Coaches: Terry Long, Douglass; Jeff Edmondson, Dale.
Five players from Norman North’s state champion boys soccer team earn honors
Five players from the Norman North boys soccer team, which won the Class 6A state championship Saturday, were selected to the District 6A-2 West all-district team.
Will Smith, Gus Jenson, Trevor Laffoon, JT Harrison and Taylor McCauley gave the T-Wolves the most players of any school selected to the team. All five players are juniors.
Smith led the state in scoring with 24 goals and scored the game-winner in Norman North’s final three games, including the state final.
Mustang had four players on the squad in Denny Landrum, Drew McElhaney, John Anderson and Jacob Strassle. Edmond Memorial’s Stuart Turnipseed, Jacob Stivers and Ty Stukey also made the team.
The rest of the squad is made up of Joshua Garcia and Martin Ochoa of US Grant, Eduardo Caballeros of Putnam City West, Taylor Vanderford of Westmoore, Chris Issac of Lawton Eisenhower and Shawnee’s Colby Anderson.
Blood donors needed to help Norman youth Kort Nicholson; Former Sooner Antonio Perkins attending the benefit blood drive
A benefit blood drive for Kort Nicholson, the son of Norman and Norman North swimming coach Kent Nicholson, will be held Friday in Norman. The three-year old Nicholson has Leukemia.
Former Oklahoma football standout Antonio Perkins will be on hand to sign autographs.
The blood drive will be held at Dimensions Academy (1101 E Main St.) from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. To donate contact Donny Griffits at 579-1880 or at donaldg@norman.k12.ok.us.
Norman North’s Claros won a title as a player; now has chance again as a coach
In the final Norman High boys soccer game before the school district split and Norman North opened its doors, Geo Claros helped guide the Tigers to the 1997 state championship.
Thirteen years later, Claros will try to bring more glory to the city’s storied soccer history. This time, though, he won’t be playing, he’ll be coaching. And he won’t be wearing the orange and black of his alma mater, but the hunter green and silver of Norman North.
“It definitely feels different,” said the 31-year old of his new role. “But the goal isn’t.”
Norman North will square off with Jenks for the Class 6A championship Saturday at 3 p.m. at Broken Arrow High School.
In his first season as a head coach on the high school level, Claros has maintained the stout North soccer tradition, but he’s taken a different route than predecessors Don Rother and Bryan Young.
Young, who was an assistant under Gordon Drummond on that 1997 Norman team that Claros played for, started the North program in 1998. He delivered two state championships (2000 and 2003) before leaving and now is the Norman North principal. Rother, a player and assistant for Young, took over and took the T-Wolves to the 2008 state final.
From 2003 to 2009, North made it to at least the semifinals six of seven seasons. Still, Claros infused his own style when taking over this spring.
“There was definitely a period of the players getting used to me and the way I did things,” he said. “And it took some time before we developed that trust you need.”
The T-Wolves started the season 4-3 before embarking on a 10-game winning streak in which they have outscored foes 33-6. To make it to the final, No. 4 North beat the No. 1- and No. 2-ranked teams in 6A.
“We’ve come a long way,” Claros said. “I think we’ve gotten to where we work incredibly hard, work together and have a toughness we have to have to win the games we’ve won in the playoffs.”
But even with standout offensive play from Will Smith, who leads 6A in goals with 23, and Taylor McCauley and stout defense from players such as Trevor Lafoon and Cole Adkins, Claros knows it takes more than merely skill.
“When dealing with high school playoffs, you have to have some luck and you have to have some clutch players make big plays,” he said. “And we’ve had both.”
Perhaps the biggest change for Claros has been having to stay outside the chalk lines.
“It’s not like as a player,” he said. “You have no control. You can feed the information and put players in the right position, but you can’t execute for them. But on this run, execution has been good.”
Jenks (13-2) is ranked sixth and has won seven straight matches. The Trojans have won five state titles since 1987.
Norman boys soccer coach Gordon Drummond earns another honor
Norman boys soccer coach Gordon Drummond has been chosen as the Class 6A-1 West All-District coach of the year.
Drummond, who has coached the Tigers since the sport’s debut at the school in 1984, guided Norman to state titles in 1986, 1993, 1997 and 1999. This season, he led Norman to the 6A semifinals and an eight-game winning streak after a 2-5 start.
Norman had a team-high five players named to the all-district squad, Ray Jennings Clark, Cal Cornwell, Dacota Sanor, Alec Lee and Matt Eckart.
Putnam City North had four players chosen in Tyler Groh, Matt Bray, Bryan Byars and Kevin Cabello.
The remainder of the team is as follows — Spencer Falcon, Nick Lovett, Garrett Molinsky (Edmond North); Matt McClain, Kris Godwin (Yukon); Alexis Velasco (Choctaw), Anthony Buchannan (Midwest City), Cody Inger (Lawton), Zach Holetzky (Moore).
Little All-City hoops games set
The Little All-City girls and boys basketball games will be held May 24 at Oklahoma Christian.
The girls game will begin at 6:30 p.m. and the boys game will follow.
Team rosters haven’t been finialized yet. We will post the rosters once they are complete.
White-hot Norman boys soccer team is the foe nobody in 6A playoffs wants to face
For a team that started the season 2-5, Norman is getting a lot of late-season attention as a squad that could take home the Class 6A boys soccer state championship.
Friday night, for the second time this season, Norman knocked off Edmond North 1-0. The first win helped the Tigers win their first district title since 2002. Friday’s win, which came via a shootout after a scoreless regulation and two overtime periods, sends Norman to the Class 6A semifinals for the first time since the same year.
Norman keeper Ray Jennings Clark came up big in the shootout to send the Tigers into Tuesday’s match against Jenks and set up the possibility of an all-Norman state final.
The perennial power Tigers, who have four state crowns, last won the title in 1999.
The reasons Norman is being considered such a threat to bag title No. 5 are simple. First, no team is hotter than the Tigers right now. They’ve won eight straight matches to improve to 10-5 on the season. Second, coach Gordon Drummond, the dean of Oklahoma boys soccer, is renowned for his team’s staunch defense. History shows that when Norman has the ability to score goals, the Tigers are as tough of a playoff out as there is.
And with Cal Cornwell and Alec Lee leading the way offensively and keeper Ray Jennings Clark making a case as Oklahoma’s best netminder added to Norman’s always- air tight defense, the Tigers are the team that nobody wants to play.
Norman North boys soccer team heads to semis for sixth time in past seven years
In a match that may have been between the top two teams in the state, Norman North notched one of its biggest wins in several seasons — which is saying a lot considering the T-Wolves are always in the thick of the Class 6A state title race — in a 1-0 triumph over Putnam City North Friday in Norman.
Will Smith added to what has been as strong of a season as anyone has had in 6A by taking a feed from T-Wolves standout JT Harrison and sending the ball past PC North’s All-American goalkeeper Bryan Byars barely two minutes into the match.
“When we scored that early in the game, it definitely got us all fired up,” said Smith, whose 22 goals leads 6A. “But we didn’t pack it in and try to make that one goal hold up, we went after more.”
In 87-plus minutes the T-Wolves never got another goal, but they never allowed one either, ending a tremendous PC North season that saw the Panthers rise to the No. 1 ranking in the country in the NSCAA/adidas poll. All the while, Norman North extended its season to the semifinals — the sixth time its done so in the past seven seasons, a feat no other school can match.
“Everyone on the back line played a huge part in the win and they deserve a lot of credit,” said Smith, a junior.
PC North, which closed at 13-2, with both losses coming in Norman, pressured the T-Wolves often in the second half and controlled much of the action, but couldn’t get a shot between the pipes.
“This was our best game of the season,” said Smith. “We’ve never played that well and that hard.”
Norman North, 13-3, will face Tulsa Union at home on Tuesday for a chance to play in its second state final in the past three seasons.
Late-season surge ends for Westmoore girls soccer team
A great late-season run by Westmoore’s girls soccer team came to a close Friday in the quarterfinals of the Class 6A playoffs.
Third-ranked Mustang topped the Jags 2-0 to advance to the 6A semis. The Broncos will face Tulsa Union Tuesday for a berth in the finals.
With Lauren Vabolis and Mia Vabolis leading the way, Westmoore overcame a 1-4 start to the season by winning seven of nine games prior to Friday’s loss. Two of Westmoore’s three losses since the month of March came to the powerful Mustang squad and the other was by the narrowest of margins to Norman North in a shootout. The Jags close out at 8-7, but exit as one of 6A’s hottest teams at the end of the year.
Lauren Vabolis and Mia Vabolis each ended the season with a team-best tying 12 goals. Mia added a team-high eight assists. Chelsea Swisher added eight goals and five assists for the Jaguars.
