CoachesAid.com - High School Sports

Sperry's offensive linemen include (from left) Chris Wallace, Steve Umphrey, James Fort, Dakota Smith, Cole Carr and Zac Wenzel.

The Sperry High School football coaches didn’t need any added motivation before last Friday’s first-round playoff game at Tahlequah Sequoyah. But Donny Teel gave them a little anyway.

“I told them that if they beat Sequoyah, I’d feed all the coaches smoked prime rib.”

So, Pirate head coach Robert Park, how do you want that smoked prime rib cooked?

Keep in mind, this isn’t run-of-the-mill smoked prime rib…if there is such a thing. Wednesday night’s special dinner will be cooked by one of American’s best known BBQ cooks. Teel runs Buffalo’s BBQ on Hwy. 11 in Sperry – when he’s not roaming the country winning Kansas City Barbecue Society contests. He’s won a grand championship in the Jack Daniel’s BBQ World Championship, has been a grand champion and reserve grand champion (two times) in the American Royal BBQ Contest (the world’s largest), and has more than 40 grand championships in eight states.

Also keep in mind, this wasn’t your run-of-mill win over Tahlequah Sequoyah. The Indians were a perfect 10-0 in the regular season and were ranked third in Class 2A. Many felt they had as good a chance as any team to keep Lincoln Christian from winning the state title. That’s a Bulldog team which blanked Sperry, 33-0, in Week No. 6. The Indians had a relatively close call the second week of the season in beating Class 4A Fort Gibson, 20-10. They crushed a previously unbeaten Vian team, 49-28. That was one of six times that Tahlequah Sequoyah topped 40 points – four times over 50. Few – very few – expected them to be one-and-done in the playoffs.

So when the Pirates came home with a 28-14 win, it was big news – not only in Sperry, but around Oklahoma. There’s an excitement in the community which hasn’t been there in quite some time. Sperry will be playing at home in the second round of the playoffs Friday, hosting Stigler (9-2), which outscored Prague, 55-48, in its opener. Last year Sperry won its opener, but lost on the road in the second round.

“I’ve heard from a lot of guys I haven’t heard from in six or seven years,” said Park Tuesday afternoon as his players began arriving in the locker room. “And everybody in town is pretty excited. They’ll be here Friday. But for a lot of them, it doesn’t matter. They follow us at home and on the road. We had a big turnout last Thursday at a bonfire we held in town. And we’ve got something special going on this Thursday, where we’re inviting all our fans to come to the school for a big pep rally.”

Sperry head coach Robert Park with linebackers Aaron Beats and Bill Gordon

Last year the four qualifiers in District A-7 raised some eyebrows when they made a clean sweep in the first round of the playoffs. Last Friday night 2A-7 qualifiers swept the four teams from 2A-8. Sperry was fourth in the district, finishing behind Lincoln Christian, Verdigris and Pawhuska. The Huskies also pulled off a surprise, winning at Vian, 40-13. They’ll play at Morris Friday, while the league champion Bulldogs host Beggs after beating Adair, 49-3. Verdigris rolled over Colcord, 48-14, and goes on the road against Chandler – which went all the way to the state finals a year ago.

There was another sweep by Northeast Oklahoma teams last week as Cascia Hall, Claremore Sequoyah, Berryhill and Dewey of 3A-3 all prevailed. Dewey was another No. 4 seed which shocked a previously unbeaten district champ, edging Metro Christian, 28-21, in Class 3A. Last year Cascia Hall and Claremore Sequoyah made it through the playoffs to face each other in the title game, with the Commandos winning their second straight gold ball.

None of the upsets matched Sperry's

None of those first-round upsets, however, can match what Sperry did – especially considering the Indians took the opening kickoff and drove for a touchdown and 7-0 lead. Pirate senior halfback Charlie Jones, who ran for 86 yards in the game to top the 1,000-yard mark for the season (1,038 and an 8.24 average per carry), scored twice in the first half on runs of 11 and 20 yards. Sperry led 12-7 at intermission, and junior halfback Barret Bowman padded the margin to 19-7 with a 30-yarder in the third period. After the Indians, with their Wing-T attack, pulled within 19-14, they appeared to be headed for a comeback win in the fourth quarter.

It was a very familiar situation for the Pirates. Their season was in danger of crumbling down around them after Pawhuska staged a miracle rally for a 21-18 district win in Week No. 7. Sperry had been blanked the two previous games by Verdigris (24-0) and Lincoln Christian. Their other loss was in the second week to Claremore Sequoyah (27-7), another Wing-T offensive powerhouse.

The week of the Lincoln Christian game, Park and his staff made some changes in their offensive line. And, despite being whitewashed by the Bulldogs, the improvement was obvious. They rushed for 200 yards in that contest. The emotional loss to Pawhuska, however, forced players and coaches to do some soul searching.

“We didn’t finish that game,” said Park, who’s been the head coach at Sperry for 10 years (16 years in wrestling). “And our kids were down that next week. Monday was a tough day for all of us. And Nowata has always been a tough game for us. So things could have gone the other way.”

Sperry running backs (from left) Barret Bowman, Charlie Jones and B. J. Driver (Photo by Wayne Bishop)

Those changes began paying off, however. Cole Carr (6-1, 220) and Zac Wenzel (6-0, 180) had been sharing time at tight end. Carr was moved to tackle, along with 6-5, 270-pound sophomore Chris Wallace.  Dakota Smith (6-1, 210) was moved from tackle to guard, and Steve Umphrey (5-10, 210) to the other guard spot. James Fort (6-1, 220) took over at center.

With Jones and Bowman (910 yards, 8.04 avg.) taking most of the carries out of the Wing-T offense, and with sophomore quarterback Jeremy Bernhardt (6-2, 175) maturing into his role, the points began coming. Sperry defeated Nowata, 32-14, then knocked off Caney Valley, 48-19, and Wyandotte, 56-0, to set up the upset at Tahlequah Sequoyah.

The Indians were knocking on the door when a lost fumble at the Pirate 25 stopped them cold with 7:31 left. The visitors were set to punt a few plays later when Jones saw that he was not being rushed. He ran 11 yards for a first down. Then Bernhardt hit Kevin Erwin for 11 on a third-down and long situation, setting the stage for B.J. Driver to hammer up the middle for 37 yards and the clinching TD. Sperry added a safety later on an intentional grounding penalty in the end zone for the final count.

Driver is the “x factor” in the Pirate offense. At 5-11, 215, he’s strong enough to play nose guard on defense. But he’s quick enough to have rushed for 449 yards and an average of more than 10 yards per carry. He’s scored 18 points this season, the same as Bernhardt, while Bowman has 88 points and Jones 72 in a well-balanced attack.

 Driver also has five sacks, but Cole Carr (9) and Wenzel (12) lead in that department. Linebackers Aaron Beats (118) and Bill Gordon (92) top all tacklers.

Park came to Sperry 20 years ago and took over as head wrestling coach about the time Donny Teel was joining his extended family in Sperry. The main reason he’s stuck around the school so long? “We have good, hard-nosed kids here. They like to work hard. And they proved last week that hard work can pay off. They were never intimidated. We played a very tough schedule, and I know from coaching wrestling that the only way to get tougher is to go up against tough competition.”…

Bulldoggers rebounded from early losses

Dewey is another team which faced a crossroads after a disappointing defeat. The Bulldoggers opened by beating Nowata, 16-14, and then blasted Cleveland, 63-0, a week after the Tigers upset Hominy. Then came a 20-13 loss to Vinita. The following week Dewey opened District 3A-3 play against Claremore Sequoyah, falling 34-14.

Coach Chris Revard’s team responded by playing some of its best football of the year. They won three straight by a combined 169-7 before dropping a 48-0 decision to Cascia Hall. In a key matchup, Dewey edged Perkins-Tryon, 40-36, before ending the regular season with a 25-6 loss to Berryhill that left them in fourth place in the district.

Dewey quarterback Clint Strate threw the winning TD pass at Metro Christian (Photo by Kevin Bishop)

That set up the trip to Metro Christian, which had completed its first 10-0 regular season since 2000. But the Patriots narrowly avoided losses to Checotah, Roland and Bristow late in the season. And Dewey had a little advantage: many of the seniors on the team had played against MCA quarterback standout Beau Marsaln as freshmen and sophomores when he was a Blackwell and Locust Grove.

“We knew what we had to do,” said Revard Monday as his team began preparations for a home date with Clinton this Friday. “It was just a matter of going out and doing it. We knew that if we executed, we could win. We never picked him (Marsaln) off, but we did a great job of disguising our coverages. Sometimes we’d bring six guys, and sometimes none at all. Casey Strate, who has 12 interceptions on the year, covered Jake Schooley quite a bit of the time, but we used some zone on them, too. We held him to only one catch.”

It’s been awhile since Dewey hosted a second-round playoff game – or even played in one. They were eliminated in the first round in 2008 (Checotah), 1994 (Eufaula) and 1993 (Holdenville). In 1991 the Bulldoggers had a memorable 9-1 regular season, then beat Cushing (34-15) in the first round and Henryetta (34-15) in the second behind the play of quarterback Brad Woodard and receiver Mark Wade. But they fell to Bristow in the semis, 20-14.

This year Dewey has combined the passing and running of senior quarterback Clint Strate (6-0, 175) with the receiving and defense of his twin brother Casey. Michael Abel caught the game-winning TD pass of 10 yards with 20 seconds left last Friday and has been a big play maker all season. Jared Cross and Stephen Eastman (6-0, 245 junior) had early TD runs to give the Bulldoggers a 14-0 lead, then the Strate brothers hooked up for a 28-yard touchdown pass just before the half for a 21-7 lead. The Patriots tied it at intermission, but the only points of the final 24 minutes came on that pass to Abel…

Wagoner, Porter get big wins; Birch resigns, Mill signs

Another No. 4 seed which whipped up on a district king was Wagoner, which blanked Jay, 35-0. The Bulldogs host OC Douglas Friday night after the Trojans upset defending state champion Glenpool, 14-0.  And Porter, which had never before won a district title until this fall, earned its first playoff win in school history, 38-28, over a Weleetka team which did an excellent job of stopping running backs Marcus Bruner and Erik Ridgway. But junior quarterback Marcus Scarborough, who has shown fascinating potential when needed, took over with 25 carries for 277 yards, scoring three times and adding a 32-yard TD pass…

Sapulpa football coach Trandy Birch announced Monday that he was retiring from his position and would concentrate on administration. Birch previously coached at Coweta, where he took teams to the playoffs four straight years, before taking over the Chieftain job two years ago…Taylor Mills of Fort Gibson, signed a letter of intent last week to play softball for Austin Peay State University, coached by former OU standout Casey Dickson…