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OCS and Metro will dual for a spot in the championship game
Once again, the road to Edmond runs through Tulsa.
Oklahoma Christian School will be seeking to follow Edmond Santa Fe’s example this Friday as the Saints travel to Tulsa for a state semifinal game.
Two weeks ago, Santa Fe traveled to the Tulsa area to take on a Tulsa powerhouse. The Wolves defeated Union to reach the state championship at Central Oklahoma’s Wantland Stadium.
OCS (11-0) faces a similar path as the Saints will play at reigning state champions Metro Christian at 7 p.m.
OCS coach Brooks Stephenson said the Saints want to become a mainstay of late November and early December football, and the players are excited for every opportunity.
“We are just so thankful and excited for every single opportunity that we get around each other,” Stephenson said. “Even the guys (Monday), I was telling them before practice, ‘Man, you get to practice on Monday, Dec. 7.’ And right away, they were like ‘Yeah! Yeah!’ They were all hooting and hollering about it. How many teams, on a Monday in practice, are hooting and hollering about opportunity? Usually, you got a case of the Mondays and it's practice and all that, but these guys are just excited.”
Metro (10-2) will provide OCS with its toughest challenge this season with a chance to play one more game in Edmond on the line.
Stephenson said the Saints have not discussed the possibility of playing for a title in Edmond but are instead fully focused on Metro.
“That would be a pretty cool setting,” Stephenson said. “We haven’t really even talked about it at all, because we’re so focused on this week and taking care of business in Tulsa on Friday… We’re excited to go play wherever it is, our place, their place, the parking lot, UCO, we just want to play football. It would be a pretty cool thing to be able to do, but we’re pretty focused on this week.”
The Patriots have swept 2A competition to this point, only losing on the road against 3A Holland Hall and against Texas 4A-1 Paris.
Metro defeated Rejoice Christian, Vian and Marlow to reach the semifinals.
The Saints and Patriots are familiar with one another. Although they did not play in the regular season this year, the two had previously done so every season since 2010. Metro has mostly dominated the series to this point, winning eight of the ten meetings.
Stephenson said this is an opportunity to show how far the Saints have come.
“We might have a lot of the same guys on our roster, but (we’re a) totally different team,” Stephenson said. “I think our entire community has been really, really impressed with the way in which our guys have just continued time and time again to answer the bell this year. What (could be) a better way to kind of cap off sending that message of ‘different year, different team’ than a good, hard-fought victory this Friday?”
An OCS win would mean the Saints’ first victory against Metro since 2014 and first trip to the title game since 2012, when OCS won its first state championship.