County notes

The regular season ends Friday night for all county football teams.

At least two county teams will make the playoffs, and possibly three.

Arkoma is in, along with the winner of Pocola's game at Heavener. Spiro must win at Stigler and see how other district games wind up to find out if the Bulldogs will make the playoffs.

One of the biggest surprises for county teams this year was the improvement Panama showed. Earlier in the year, the Razorbacks were not a good football team. But the Razorbacks snapped a 17-game losing streak two weeks ago by beating rival Pocola, 21-20, and gave Heavener a tussle before losing last week.

If Panama had defeated Heavener, the Razorbacks would have made the playoffs. This was certainly a difference from early in the season. Panama coach Brandon Ellis has probably done the best coaching job of any coach in the county this year.

Ellis has got the Razorbacks headed in the right direction. If he is given enough time, Panama could be back.

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It looks like the LeFlore County Tournament will be played in county again this year. Bokoshe is the host this year with the semifinals and finals to be played at Spiro High School, just like it was last year.

This means the big games in the county tournament will be played in the county. This is still a little controversial move. Everybody wants the county tournament to be played in the county, but there are some who don't like playing at Spiro.

But until a new facility is built, and there are no plans to do so, if we are going to play it in LeFlore County instead of UAFS, this is the only choice.

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Talihina's girls were already expected to be better this year. The addition of Chelsea Baggs could make the Lady Tigers one of the teams to beat in the LCT.

Baggs was one of the top players in the county as a sophomore and played her junior year at Caddo.
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Baseball is still months away, but there is already some controversy. Arkoma was scheduled to be the host this year, but handed it off to Spiro, which will now host the county tournament.

Some coaches are not happy with this and have said their teams will not participate. Hopefully this won't happen and all the teams will compete in the showcase for county teams.

It does look like one of the best pitchers in the county, Blake Roley, will not be throwing for Poteau this year as he is scheduled to have an operation on his arm. Roley, also one of the better basketball players in the county, will miss his senior year in hoops.

Roley came out for football as a senior after not playing since his freshman year and is one of Poteau's leading receivers, catching three touchdown passes in last week's 59-56 loss at Fort Gibson.

Apparently the injury dates back to last summer and was not a result of playing football. Roley, who was throwing over 90 MPH last year, was expected to get a lot of attention from colleges this spring.