October 31, 2026 Issue, Page 3 of 13

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SPORTS The Elk City News Elk CIty Cup - Greg Dodson Team Elk City Cup - Terry Stone Team SATURDAY, OCTOBER 31, 2026 • 3 Captain Greg Dodson with Elk City Cup Captain Greg Dodson with Gabe Edney Tate Hutchinson (3 yrs old) playing with brother Crew Carter in basketball practice Xander in basketball practice Jackson in basketball practice Arrowhead Center - Forget Basketball! AAliyali - Future Army Nurse Jay Merz Jay & Xander in basketball practice Arrowhead Center - Smiley Girl Atticus Merz Graham Cecil in basketball practice Crew Hutchinson Local Sports By Alex Alvarez GOLF WEEKEND AT SAYRE NATIONAL: Saturday the 24th: Sayre National hosted the team from Shamrock in the Annual Route 66 Cup which was won by Sayre National by a score of 38 ½ to 9 ½. The last official tournament of the year will be November 1st at noon: End of the Year Jack & Jill! Afterwards, during the winter and until sometime in March, there will be informal Saturday Scrambles open to all ages. Sunday the 25th: The “End of the Year Tournament” which was played as a 2-Man team hosted 28 teams divided in three flights. The winners were as follows: “A”: 1st Denton Jones/Heston Brown (62), Tie 2nd (64) Justin Barrick/Eddie Lakey & Cole Hammond/Keegan Hall. “B”: 1st Baylor Cotts/Teagan Counts (), 2nd Chance Vignal/Emory Allen, tied 3rd Chris Venegas/ Barry Clark & Culley Evetts/Jesse Evets “C”: 1st Ethan George/Chance Hall 2nd Tyler Carnes/Jonathan James 3rd Jay & Jen Manning GOLF WEEKEND AT ELK CITY: THE ELK CITY CUP The Elk City Golf & Country Club hosts an end of the year tournament among members only called the Elk City Cup. Thirty-Six players qualify for the cup based on their participation and finishes on Tuesday Scrambles, Thursday Couples, Friday Men’s and “majors” like the Club Championship and the Twister (AKA Member-Guest). Derek Hahn, PGA Pro at the club, organizes a great party where two captains are chosen based on the points earned during the year and they choose their teams from the other 34 players in a very organized manner: Captain 1 (Greg Dodson) chooses first, then Captain 2 (Terry Stone) chooses two players, then Captain 1 two players, and so on. Then, on Friday before the tournament, the captains and the Pro get together with all the players for a “Pairing Party” in which the captains pair their 18 players into nine 2-Man teams, then, in Ryder Cup style, they choose who plays against each other in Four Ball (AKA Best Ball) on Saturday morning and Modified Foursomes (AKA Modified Alternate Shots) in the afternoon. Each match is worth one point. On the afternoon of Saturday, after the first two rounds are finished, captains get together with Derek Hahn and choose the matchups for the 18 singles matches on Sunday. Derek Hahn provides a list of players and their handicaps from each set of tees based on their USGA’s Handicap Index, and players may choose which tees they will use in each match, with more handicap if they play the back tees and less handicap is they play the forward tees (four different tees). So, there’s a lot of “strategy” involved, since some teams get more strokes, prefer to play back tees, and some, don’t mind having less handicap by playing the forward tees (Black, Blue, White, Gold, Red). The morning round on Saturday went to Terry’s team 5-4, and the afternoon round went to Greg’s team by the same score, so after Saturday, the teams were tied at 9 points each. But Sunday was not very good to Terry’s team, and they only won 6 of 18 matches for a final score of 21-15 in favor of Dodson’s team who won 12 of the 18 points on Sunday. This is one of the finest and most sought tournaments of the year for members. A thank you to KECO who is very involved in the sponsorship of the event! Jeff Rule and Justin Twyman, both on Greg Dodson’s team, ended 3-0 for their respective matches. KIDS INC WINTER Basketball season is about to open! Get your kids signed up! Call Amanda Hunter or Katlynmn Huckabay to sign your team or volunteer as a coach at 580-374-4332. Basketball Practice - Tyler Caswell helping Jay Merz HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS AROUND THE AREA ELK CITY Football: Coach Zac Maynard. Record 2-6. The Elks have won their last two games, first against U.S. Grant by a score of 41-16, and last week against Douglas 34-12. Both games were away. Next Games: Clinton (Oct 30) and Bethany (Nov-6) Basketball: will begin on December 1st for both boys (Coach: Tyler Foale) and girls (Coach: Mason Jones). Wrestling: will begin December 8th (Coach Kaleb Murray) SAYRE: Football: Coach Craig Hixon. Class “A.” 2026 Record 4-4. Unranked. Last three Games 2-1: Loss vs Tonkawa 12-63; wins vs Hinton 50-6, Merritt 34-16. Coming Up: Hooker (Oct 30), Watonga (Nov 6). Basketball: Begins December 1st for Boys (Coach: Garrett Thomas) and Girls (Coach: Libbi Zinn) MERRITT: Football: Coach Dustin Beasley. Class “A”. Record 2-6 Unranked. Last Three Games 0-3: Losses vs Fairview 6-62, Crescent 0-40 and Sayre 16-34. Coming up: Hooker (Nov 6) Basketball: Begins November 20 for boys (Coach: Tyler Snowden) and Girls (Coach: Jarod Owen) CANUTE: Basketball: will start on November 6 for boys (Coach: Brock Steffes) and girls (Coach: Tatum Ridling). Note: Canute Girls was Basketball State Champion in early 2026 on their 2025-2026 season. Canute does not have a football team. Professional Golf By Alex Alvarez PGA TOUR: BUTTERFIELD BERMUDA CHAMPIONSHIP The Butterfield Bermuda Championship was shortened to three rounds due to extreme weather that brough winds which made the tournament “unplayable” for the final round on Sunday. Two players were tied for the lead after Saturday’s round at 16 under par: Seamus Power from Ireland and eventual winner after three playoff holes in a sudden death format, Austin Smotherman, who had won his first tournament three weeks ago in Utah. The following were three players in a tie for 3rd at 14 under: Taylor Moore, Corey Conners and Ben Silverman. Tied sixth at 13 under par were Tom Hoge, Chris Kirk, Chan Kim, Danny Walker and Chandler Blanchet. Four other players tied at 12 under par. Coming up: VidantWorld Mexico Open in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico at the Vidanta Vallarta Club. Oklahoman and former Elk Citian, Ryder Cowan will be competing in this event! CHAMPIONS TOUR: The first playoff tournament of the Charles Schwab Cup was played at the Norwood Hills Country Club in St. Louis, MO with the top 72 players in the Cupp standings, and Rory Sabatini from South Africa shot a 62 closing round to win his first tournament and jump to 7th place in the standings. His final total score was 14 under par. After the St. Louis, MO event, the top 54 made it to the second playoff tournament to be played in Arkansas at the Simmons Bank presented by Stephens. The Tournament will be played at the Pleasant Valley C.C. in Little Rock, Arkansas on October 30-Nov 1. In second place was Darren Clarke at 13 under, followed by Steven Alker, Mario Tiziani and Henrick Stenson at 12 under par. In a tie for 6th at 9 under par were Boo Weekley and Shane Bertsch, followed by four players in a tie for 8th at 8 under par, Soren Kjeldsen, Y.E. Yang, Tim Petrovic, Vaughn Taylor and Scott Parel. Four more players were tied at 7 under. Big Names like Angel Cabrera (39th in points), Henrik Stenson (41st), Paul Stankowski (42nd) and Berhard Langer (44th) will have to play well to get into the top 36 for the final tournament for the Charles Schwab Cup in Phoenix the following week. Should Bernhard Langer make it, it will be his 10th straight final in the Charles Schwab Cup, which he has won five times. The winner gets a $1,000,000 bonus. LPGA The ladies played in South Korea’s Pine Beach Golf Links, also called “Pebble Beach of the East” Yuri Yoshida won with 17 under par. Tied for 2nd H.J. Choi and H. Ryu at 16 under. In a tie for 4th were M.S. Kim and H.J. Kim at 15 under par. Four players were tied for 6th at 14 under par. Coming up: Maybank Championship in Kuala Lumpur. Then… back to the USA! DP WORLD TOUR: South Korea hosted last week’s DP World Tour event at the Woo Jeong Hills Country Club, and Japanese Yuto Katsurawaga won with a score of 13 under par, beating two players from France who finished at 11 under par two shots behind, Martin Couvra and Frederic LaCroix. In a tie for 4th place were Frenchman Antonio Rozner Italian Filippo Celli, Australian Ryan Fox, South Koreans S. H. Shin and S.W. Kim and South African Casey Jarvis, all tied at 10 under par. Coming up are the BMW Australian PGA Championship (Nov 2730) and the Crown Australian Open on Dec 4-7. Professional Team Sports By Alex Alvarez 2026 WORLD SERIES: Thirty-nine times, the home team has won the first two games of the World Series at home; thirty-one of those, that team has won the World Series. Twenty-six times a team that took the lead 3-0 in the October Classic has never lost the series, nor even forced a sixth or seventh game. The Brewers took the lead 3-0 after winning the third game 10-1 playing in Florida at the Tampa Bay field. On Tuesday night, the Brewers won and swept the Series 4-0 to win their first ever World Series! The history continued. Congratulations Brewers! WNBA PLAYOFFS: The Golden State Valkyries took a lead in the series of 3-2 last Monday night in the Championship series against the Atlanta Dream. The sixth game was scheduled for Thursday October 29. NFL Only twice in the history (2009 and 2015) of the NFL have more than one team remained undefeated after seven games, and it won’t happen this year. Three teams were 6-0 coming into their seventh game, and two of them lost last weekend: the Kansas City Chiefs lost to the Settle Seahawks and the San Francisco 49ers lost to the Atlanta Falcons. The third team, the Minnesota Vikings at 6-0 did not play last weekend and will play the Detroit Lions (4-2) in Detroit on Sunday, November 1st. The Dallas Cowboys beat the Philadelphia Eagles in Philadelphia last Monday night, but the Eagles did not have Jalen Hurts on the field as he is out of the season due to a clot in his lungs that is being treated as we speak. The Cowboys improved their 2026 record to a disappointing 3-4 and will have to play very well the next ten weeks to make the playoffs. The Cowboys are 1 ½ games behind the New York Giants at 4-2-1. Two teams have their starting quarterbacks out, one of them, the Philadelphia Eagles (2-5) out for the season as mentioned above, and the Baltimore Ravens (4-3) where Lamar Jackson who had an ankle sprain, but expected to play Novem- Jalen Hurts, a former Sooner and Superbowl champion with the Philadelphia Eagles as their quarterback, is out for the season due to clots in hist lungs. Wish you a prompt recovery! cinnati beat #8 Texas Tech 37-24; Wisconsin defeated #16 USC 16-7 (no playoffs for Lincoln Riley’s team); South Carolina beat #11 Tennessee 27-24. Rankings: 1-Miami (7-0), 2-Ohio State (6-1), 3-Georgia (6-1), 4-Indiana (7-1), 5-Notre Dame (6-1), 6-Utah (7-0), 7-UCLA (7-0), 8-BYU (6-1), 9-Kentucky (7-1), 10-Alabama (6-2). Texas is now #11, Oklahoma State got to the top 25 at #24! And the Sooners are not ranked! Sources ESPN, Google, MSN Sports, On-Line, local See TEAM page 10 Sports Tidbits By Alex Alvarez WNBA WHY??? Finalist teams continue to miss the National Anthem, but no one has said what these women are protesting for. After five games of the championship series, Golden State Valkyries have the lead in the series 3-2 versus the Atlanta Dream. But they both lead teams refusing to stay to listen to the National Anthem at 5-0! The league declared that Enas Kanter Freedom and Royce White ARE MEN and cannot sign up for the WNBA draft, but haven’t decided what a woman is, which is why Kanter Freedom is thinking about a lawsuit. Aminata Gueye signed with the Valkyries for the rest of the season while the team waved to Nadia Fingall. GOLF The over-50 playoffs have begun. Last week, the top 72 in points played in St Louis, MO. For this weekend in Arkansas at the Simmons Bank Championship, the top 54 will tee it up. Notables who missed the top 54: Kenny Perry, Mike Weir, Matt Goggin, Colin Montgomery, David Duval and Stuart Appleby. South African Rory Sabatini closed with a 62 for his first Senior Tour win and jumped to 7th in the Charles Schwab Cup standings. Top 36 this week will make the final to be played in Phoenix next week at Phoenix C.C. On the regular tour, the Bermuda Championship, which had to be delayed to Monday due to very high winds, was won by Austin Smotherman, who won his second tournament in a row. He defeated Seamus Power on the third hole of a sudden death playoff. LPGA has become a world tour, playing all over the world. This last month they have been in South Korea, China and Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) NFL FOOTBALL: Only one team remains undefeated: Minnesota at 6-0 under the leadership of former Sooner quarterback and Heisman winner Kyler Murray, whose first stint in the NFL with the Arizona Cardinals did not go well finishing with a record of 38-48-1. COLEGE FOOTBALL Rankings go into spiral as top teams continue to lose over the last three weekends: after Oklahoma beat #1 Texas, the Longhorns lost to Florida the following week by the same score 24-27. #2 BYU snapped an undefeated season by losing to UCF 39-31 in two over-times; Cin-