Black Diamonds defeat Tulsa McLain, travel Thursday night to Glenpool

TULSA — The Sallisaw Black Diamonds bounced back from their 2024 homecoming loss to Broken Bow with a 28-20 District 4A-4 road victory over the Tulsa McLain Titans on Friday night at Melvin Driver Stadium.

Back-up quarterback Kase Adams threw for 123 yards and two touchdown passes, a 63-yarder to Cooper Cox and a 34-yarder to Kenyan Hill.

Tae-Muskrat-Flynn also threw a 28-yard TD pass to Cole Mayfield.

The Black Diamonds (5-1 overall, 2-1 in district play) also got a 1-yard touchdown run from Cooper Jackson, and Brian Castor hit all four extra points.

“It’s always good to win, especially going back on the road again,” Sallisaw coach Brandon Tyler said. “It feels like we’ve been on the road forever this year. I was proud of our kids the way they responded. We had a good week of practice last week. That carried over into Friday night. Our kids went up there and played well.”

The win not only got the Black Diamonds their fifth win of the season and second district victory, it also got Tyler his 200th coaching victory as a head coach. “It does feel good, but it’s just one of those deals,” Tyler said. “That’s what happens when you surround yourself with good people. We have a good coaching staff and good kids that buy into what you want to do. They’re just as deserving as anybody. I’m just glad to get to come to work every day and be with these kids and coaches. All that stuff (coaching honors) takes care of itself. I’m very proud of our assistant coaches and our kids being prepared each and every week, and continue to make an impact in their lives — that is our No. 1 goal. Everything else will take care of itself.”

The Black Diamonds will look to begin another winning streak, such as the 4-0 start to the season, on Thursday night when they travel once more to the Tulsa metroplex to face the Glenpool Warriors.

The Warriors (0-6, 0-3) will be seeking their first win of the season Thursday night. They lost all three previous district games — 51-0 to Broken Bow, 48-10 to Hilldale and 35-13 to Poteau — as well as falling in all three non-district games to begin the season, losing 16-13 to Skiatook, 39-14 to Pryor and 44-18 to Fort Gibson.

However, Tyler said the Warriors are a lot better than their record indicates.

“Their record is kind of deceiving,” he said. “They’re a very good 0-6 football team. They have some really good-looking athletes they’re going to run out there on the field. They played hard against Poteau last week and came up just a little bit short. They’re a big, physical football team. They have a good quarterback who can throw it. Their quarterback has a really live arm. He’s like 6-1, 210 (pounds). They have good receivers. I think they’ll try to throw it quite a bit. Our (defensive) secondary is going to have our work cut out for us this week. We gave up 245 yards passing last week to (Tulsa) McLain. I’m sure they’re going to try to throw it all over the place and see what happens. They do a lot of different sets. They’ll go to a oneback set to an empty set to running the football a little bit.”

The biggest issue Tyler has been seeing of late — really since the Zero Week season-opening 31-14 victory over Pryor on Aug. 30 at Perry F. Lattimore Stadium — is slow starts.

“Offensively, we’re sputtering right now for whatever reason,” Tyler said. “They kind of sputtered at times on both sides of the ball (last week). I don’t think we’ve hit on all cylinders since the Pryor game. It’s either a misread here or a missed cut by the running backs or we’re not staying on our blocks long enough. It’s a combination of a lot of things that we have to get cleaned up. There’s still a lot of things to clean up here in the next three weeks if we want to get into the playoffs and see what happens there. That’s a long way to go. We just have to take it a game at a time. We’ve got Glenpool this week, but we’re going to continue to focus on Sallisaw and us getting better on the offensive side of the ball.”

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TO GET THERE — Take Interstate 40 west to the Muskogee Turnpike. Take the Muskogee Turnpike west to the Creek Turnpike. Take the Creek Turnpike west to U.S. 75. Take U.S. 75 south to Glenpool.