Sandites Return To Championship For First Time In Nearly 50 Years

This year’s Sand Springs football team ended a nearly 50-year drought of playing for a championship, but Friday night they’ll take the field against the Bixby Spartans.

Five decades is a long time to wait to make it to the championship, and even with people packing the stands for a pep rally Thursday night, players said they aren't taking Friday's game lightly.

Bixby won the championship last year, which is why the Sand Springs players said the game will be tough, but they are ready for it.

12/3/2015 Related Story: 6A-II State Championship Preview: Bixby vs. Sand Springs

If excitement mounted up to points, the Sandites would score off the charts - but it doesn't work like that.

If the team wants to beat the current state champions, they have to do the work; and getting a win over Bixby will be a tough one, but Superintendent Lloyd Snow is confident.

“The Spartans are a great school, great kids, great program, but we are feeling good about the Sandites,” he said.

Senior Jacob Taber said, "I feel it's a tremendous amount of weight it carries. It's a big responsibility, but it feels great."

Taber said, the past four years, he and his team have worked hard to get to the championship game.

"It's going to be a different ballgame. They are gonna come out, they are gonna be ready, they are gonna be physical," he said.

Arlie Christmas and his teammates have been there; back in 1966 they, too, battled it out under the Friday night lights for the golden trophy.

"I hope these young men have the same feeling we had when we stepped off that bus and played the state championship," he said.

Christmas said being the team to bring the school back to the championship is great, but it's the lessons they learned getting there that will mean even more.

"You know that, no matter what obstacle is in front of you, you stick together, you can get through it,” he said.

Sand Springs beat the Spartan earlier this season, but players said it's going to be hard to beat a good team twice.

The game is at 7:00 Friday night at Union.