Oklahoma high school football notebook: Wagoner coach reflects on bizarre finish to team's win

News and notes from Oklahoma high school football

By Buck Ringgold

Without a doubt, last week's Wagoner-Grove game will go down as one of the most bizarre finishes in the annals of Oklahoma high school football.

In a big game with District 4A-3 title implications, Wagoner got a 22-20 win when Grove coach Ron Culwell elected to go for an intentional safety on the game's final play.

The loss forced a three-way tie for first between Grove, Wagoner and Bristow but it still put the Ridgerunners in front of both Wagoner and Bristow in marginal points as Grove has 64 points. Grove beat Bristow while Bristow handed Wagoner its lone 4A-3 defeat.

But at the time, Culwell thought if the game had gone into overtime and Grove had lost, it would have cost the Ridgerunners six points. Due to Oklahoma Secondary School Activities Association rules however, a team can gain or lose just one marginal point.

"I thought it was like the old days," Culwell told the Tulsa World following Friday's loss. "I thought it was however many points were scored."

When informed of the one-point overtime rule, Culwell added "Then we made a bad decision and cost our kids a chance to win."

Right before the game-ending safety, marginal points were on the mind of Wagoner coach Dale Condict. He needed to win by at least five points for the Bulldogs to take over Grove in the point standings.

Wagoner drove to the Grove 30 inside the final seconds, but aware of the point situation, Condict didn't go for the field goal when faced with fourth down. Instead, the Bulldogs threw a deep pass toward the end zone which fell incomplete with four seconds left.

Culwell then called for the intentional safety, having his quarterback run behind the end zone as time expired.

"I know in the moment, Coach Culwell is a good friend of mine and he's a great guy and I'm sure he's conflicted on what happened at the end," Condict said on an appearance earlier this week on Tulsa radio station The Blitz 1170 AM. "But the bottom line is I think he thought, when we went to overtime, the margin of points would still be full play and if we got a touchdown, we would have gone up by six and beat them in the district, and I think he said that in the media.

"It's risky, there's definitely a lot of risk involved and it's a philosophical thing. Over the week, I've had people say, 'Yeah, I think it's a smart move,' and then there's others that say, and I'm also of the opinion, I would never be able to intentionally lose a game; I just couldn't do it."

But now, Wagoner (7-2, 5-1) and Grove (8-1, 5-1) have to take care of its business in its respective regular-season finales Friday while also keeping tabs on Bristow, which plays against Oologah.

Wagoner still trails Grove by five points in the three-way tie atop 4A-3. But a Bristow loss and a Wagoner win against Skiatook gives the Bulldogs the No. 1 playoff seed. They can also get the top seed if Grove beats Miami by nine points or less and Wagoner wins by at least 15 points.

"We'll all be watching our phones Friday night, no doubt," Condict said during his radio appearance this week.

Saturday Night Live

The regular season in Oklahoma won't end on Friday, but rather on Saturday with a big game on tap in Tulsa as Beggs faces Victory Christian in a game that will determine the outright 2A-7 champion.

Victory Christian coach Ben Palmer remarked that the game was originally scheduled to be played Thursday night before a scheduling conflict necessitated a move.

He had two options, play on Friday afternoon or Saturday. Because it's the Conquerors' Senior Night, Palmer didn't feel it was right to have the ceremony on Friday afternoon, and Victory's field is being used during the daytime Saturday for a regional cheerleading competition.

So Saturday night it is.

"It's not ideal by any means, but it was the only thing we could do that was fair to our seniors' families and to ensure that we had a quality officiating crew there as well," Palmer said.

The move to Saturday, though, may attract more interest, especially in a game in which a district title is at stake.

"We're excited for the opportunity and just the fact that it's a championship game, being here at Victory, I don't think they've hosted one in quite a while, so I think it's good for the whole community here at Victory just to get something big for football going again here," Palmer said.

Palmer is in his second season with the Conquerors, going 6-6 last season while dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. After starting this season 1-2, Victory (7-2, 6-0) has turned it on in district play, highlighted by a decisive 62-7 win against Metro Christian, the defending 2A champions.

"We've been rolling," Palmer said. "Our kids, they've had a whole new swag about them.

"I think they were always confident this season at what we can be and how good we can be, and earlier in the year, we kind of got in our own way. The two losses we had, we committed a lot of turnovers and made a lot of mistakes as we were still growing."

Palmer added his team has only three senior starters on offense, none on the offensive line, and only two senior starters on defense. So entering district play, it was a matter of his team realizing they needed to clean up their mistakes.

"Since then, we've been clicking and once we hit district, we hit our stride and the kids understand stuff now," Palmer said. "Last year, we were learning things on the fly. ... Now they're knowing it, they're executing it and we're not beating ourselves, we're not making very many mistakes so we think we can hang with anybody whenever we don't beat ourselves."

For All The 4A-4 Marbles

Another game to determine an outright district champion takes place Friday night in Poteau. The Pirates take on Broken Bow in a matchup between two 8-1 teams, and two teams that have won all six 4A-4 games up to this point.

Poteau coach Greg Werner, who formerly coached at Broken Bow, knows how dangerous the Savages can be.

"They're a really, really good football team and man, they've just got so much team speed and they can hurt you in a hurry," Werner said. "You can play really well every play and all of a sudden, you look up and you're down 21-0 because they've got kids that can just go.

"There's no doubt, we've played nine ballgames and it's the most talented football team we'll see and I would put them talent-wise against anybody in 4A. I don't think anybody in 4A can match the speed that they have on both sides of the football, so they're impressive and they've kind of mowed through everybody, so it's a huge challenge for us."

Broken Bow's lone loss came to 5A McAlester, which is currently 9-0. Poteau's lone defeat was by six points to Northwest Arkansas power Shiloh Christian.

Last week, the Pirates handled a Fort Gibson team that still harbored district title hopes, 49-21.

"I thought the kids played well and executed well the game plan that we had," Werner said. "Fort Gibson's a good football team and I thought we did an outstanding job against them."

The Pirates' defense held the Tigers to 256 yards of total offense and intercepted two passes.

"One is the fact that we've gotten better every week because on defense, we start seven sophomores, and so it's a young bunch, and I'm starting a freshman also, so it's young, but the kids just keep getting better and getting better, so they've improved a lot," Werner said. "I just think we're fast on defense, we're not very big, we're very small but we run well and it's bode well for us this season so far."

On offense, the Pirates have employed a run-heavy approach. In last week's win, they amassed 415 yards on the ground, scoring six touchdowns, four from senior tailback Todd Mattox, who rushed for 184 yards.

They have had several other players capable of running the ball, but Werner also gave credit to a senior-oriented line.

"I think the biggest deal for us right now is just the improvement up front on the offensive line; we've come a million miles and we've got some kids up front that have done well," Werner said. "We're also a very senior-dominated bunch; we've got only one underclassmen on the line, all the rest are seniors."

Cashion Cashing In

Defending Class A state champion Cashion seems to be getting the pieces in place for another run at the gold ball.

The Wildcats wrapped up the A-3 championship with a resounding 28-8 win at Tonkawa last week.

To Cashion coach Lynn Shackleford, it's all about focusing on the game being played that week and the practices that lead up to that particular game.

"I think our kids, especially probably the last three or four years, have kind of bought into the mindset and really just try to do everything possible to just stay focused on what's going to happen Friday," Shackleford said. "We don't talk about who we might play in the playoffs or who we might match up with or, hey, we've got a big game three weeks from now.

"It's just if we don't practice well, we're not going to play well on Friday and it doesn't matter really who we're playing, so that's kind of our mindset. Even this year, we haven't talked about last year or anything other than that, other than the fact that we have an understanding that we're probably going to get everybody's best effort on Friday night just because of who we are and what we were able to accomplish last year."

The Wildcats (8-1 overall) have used an explosive offense, featuring quarterback Ben Harman and receivers Mason Manning and Landon LaGasse, both of whom have more than 1,000 yards. But they have also had a late surge from tailback Nick Nabavi, who had 148 yards and a TD in last week's win, and an emerging defense, which held Tonkawa to 237 total yards while forcing three turnovers.

"We were able to capitalize on some turnovers and I thought our defense played as well as we've played all year," Shackleford said. "That was one of the things last year, our defense was really good, we kind of leaned on them throughout the season.

"This year, we had to replace a lot of guys on that side of the ball and we've kind of been up and down, but the last probably two to three weeks, we've been playing better and I thought last Friday night, we played as well as we've played around here in a long time on defense."

Cashion wraps up the regular season with a road game at rival Crescent.

"I like where we are right now; I think we're starting to play better," Shackleford said. "You kind of always want to be playing your best football when the playoffs start and I think we're trending in that direction."

Week 10 Showdowns

There are several other games in Week 10 which will decide district championships.

Bethany will play at Clinton for the outright 4A-1 title, while in 2A-6, Antlers will play at Eufaula, with the winner taking district and the loser ending up in second. Then in A-1, a pair of 9-0 teams, Hooker and Fairview, square off for the district championship, while Ringling faces Elmore City-Pernell for the A-4 title.

Other games present do-or-die situations.

Glenpool plays at Sapulpa for the fourth and final seed in 5A-4, Atoka is at Idabel for the No. 4 seed in 2A-6, while the No. 4 seed from A-3 is at stake when Hinton plays at Watonga. The same holds true in A-4 when Dibble travels to Wynnewood as well as A-5 when Fairland plays Oklahoma Union.

In B-1, the No. 4 seed is at stake when Turpin goes to Seiling. Alex plays at Strother for the No. 4 seed in B-4, Gans plays Cave Springs for the final playoff seed from B-6, while the same applies from B-7, when Barnsdall faces Yale. One outright No. 4 seed will be determined in Class C, with Welch facing Medford for the fourth seed from C-3.