On Friday March 1st, the Boys Merritt Oilers team earned their ticket to the State Tournament by defeating the Central Sallisaw Tigers in a very close game ending 42-40 at the Stride Center in Enid, OK. The first game of the State Tournament was on Wednesday, at 9:00 p.m., so there was no time for this article to get the results, which will be published on the edition of March 16. Top scorers for the Oilers were Luke Peffer with 17, Caden Smith with 11 and Joshua Ligo with 8. With the game going to the last few seconds, both teams had a chance to win, but Oilers prevailed with a great defense and great shooting when it counted.
Previously, the girls’ team had also qualified for the State Tournament, making it the first time ever that both girls and boys teams in Merritt qualify for the State Tournament on the same year! Congratulations to the kids and of course to coach Husband (Boys) and coach Daugherty (Girls).
On Wednesday, before the deadline for this post, the girls’ team advanced to the next game by winning against Pacola 5648. Addison Hartman took the team lead when putting 20 points on the board. They will go head-to-head against Riverside on Friday at 1 p.m. Way to go Oilerettes! More details in next post!
AROUND THE STATE – WITH OUR ELK CITY KIDS. It is not often that a local athlete in a small town ends up playing on a Division I college team of any sport. That is the case with Ryder Cowan, whose first golf swings were in Elk City, eventually moving to Edmond, right before his high school freshman year. There, he continued to play the sport his family enjoyed together, and he improved so much, that he won several tournaments, including the Oklahoma Men’s Stroke Play, the Oklahoma Junior Match Play and Junior Stroke Play last year. He was eventually recruited to be a Sooner by the former National Champion Oklahoma University. His grandparents still live in Elk City and whenever possible, they attend tournaments around the USA, as last week when they headed to Las Vegas.
As a freshman, he has qualified to go to several tournaments, the most recent one, the Southern Highlands Collegiate in Las Vegas, where the Oklahoma University Sooners won first place against such power houses of Texas and Auburn, and of course, over home favorites, Las Vegas. Ryder shot rounds of 72-74-72 and finished 21st in this tournament and third within the school.
The Elk City News is interested in all sports coming from our kids, and we encourage parents of athletes who have kids playing sports in Division I schools to send us results at alexalvarezphotography@ live.com so we can publish the results in the Elk City News pages.
