Road To Edmond: Union

Get 25% off your subscription by entering Knight25 in the coupon code area. Enjoy! The Class 6A-D1 state championship is set for 1PM on December 4th at UCO. And it’ll be a championship showdown between two rivals as defending champion Jenks squares off with rival Union. Prep Redzone Oklahoma has complete coverage of the championship games and more preview content than anyone else to get you ready for the title games! In this latest post, we take a look at the “Road To Edmond” for the Union Redhawks, looking back at their 2021 season. Preseason - Ranked #2 There was plenty to be excited about when it came to the 2021 football season for Union back in the summer. Union finished the 2020 season in such a strong way that there was no doubt that they would have plenty of momentum coming into the new season. Add that with the majority of their starters returning and plenty of firepower on both sides of the ball, Union came into this season as the #2 team in our 6A-1 rankings back in July. Owasso was the only team ahead of them in the rankings but Union would get a date with the Rams to open up district play. Union’s strength coming into the year was their running game, combined with one of the better offensive line units in the state. With several D1 prospects on the line and multiple D1 prospects in the backfield, it was hard to imagine anyone slowing down the Union rushing attack. Union would remain in the top five throughout the season, despite dealing with more hurdles during the year. August 27 – Beat Mansfield Lake Ridge, TX. 48-20 Another reason to be excited about the 2021 season was the opening of Union’s newly renovated stadium. After playing the majority of the 2020 season on the road, Union would be able to show off their new home that they would eventually start calling "The Big House". Union opened up the season against Mansfield Lake Ridge in week zero as part of the annual "Border Brawl" between the Mansfield schools and Broken Arrow, Bixby, Jenks and Union. The home fans would be happy as Union would open up their season with a dominating 48-20 victory. The game wasn’t even that close as Union would score early in the fourth quarter to make it 48-7 and would put it on cruise control from there. Lake Ridge would score twice but the game was over. September 3 – Beat Broken Arrow 38-28 Union would continue their home stand to open up the 2021 season with a non-district clash with rival Broken Arrow in week one. Union would knock off the Tigers 38-28 and former Union standout and coach Josh Blankenship, who’s now coaching at the Tigers. This was definitely a tale of two halves as Union jumped out to a 21-0 lead in the first half and they were rolling. But Broken Arrow would put together a rally to pull within 24-21 in the third quarter but Union would put the Tigers away and the rally would end short of pulling off the upset of Union on the road. Union would improve to 2-0 on the season and they would turn their attention to their arch rival and a meeting in the Backyard Bowl against Jenks and they’d get that game at home as well. September 10 – Lost To Jenks 22-0 Union was riding high coming into the week two clash with Jenks in the annual Backyard Bowl. Union was 2-0 and had looked great to start the season and the Trojans were knocked off by Bixby the previous week. However, Jenks would pitch a shutout for the second consecutive season and would hand Union their first loss of the season and their first loss in their newly renovated stadium. Jenks would start freshman quarterback [player_tooltip player_id="188014" first="Shaker" last="Reisig"] and surprise Union with the new starter at quarterback. Despite throwing an interception on the first play, Reisig would bounce back with a touchdown on his next pass. But the big story was the Jenks defense shutting out Union for the second consecutive season and Union would drop to 2-1. September 24 – Beat Owasso 10-7 (OT) After having week three off, Union would open up district play against top-ranked Owasso. Union certainly had their hands full as Owasso came in with a 3-0 record and an offense that was averaging nearly 50 points per game. As you can see, Union pulled off quite the upset to open up district play. It wasn’t an upset that Union would beat the visiting Rams, it was definitely the fact that they nearly shut them out. Union would immediately jump out to a 7-0 lead and then it would become a defensive slugfest for the rest of the game. Owasso would score with less than six minutes to play to tie the game up. After Owasso missed a field goal in overtime, TJ Cowan would kick the game-winning field goal in the extra period to give Union the win. October 1 – Beat Putnam City 35-7 This final score definitely doesn’t tell the full story as Union hit the road for the first time in the 2021 season in week five for their district clash with Putnam City. Union would prevail 35-7, but this game was much closer throughout than that final score indicates. Putnam City would score their lone touchdown in the third quarter and that tied the game at 7. However, to Union’s credit, they would respond to the upset bid from the Pirates by scoring 28 unanswered points to close out the game. Union struggled with penalties and were penalized 15 times throughout the game. After Grayson Tempest went down with an injury, Union would hand the keys to their offense to senior standout [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] and the senior responded well in the win. October 8 – Beat Mustang 48-10 After the slow start against Putnam City, Union was determined to get back on track and would do so as they returned home to take on Mustang. Union would roll to a 48-10 victory and senior running back [player_tooltip player_id="67771" first="Antonio" last="Smith"] had an outstanding game running the ball and played well for [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] as a receiver out of the backfield. Union didn’t mess around and put Mustang away in the first half and led the Broncos 38-3 at halftime. From there, they would put it on cruise control as the offense clicked on all cylinders and Union as a whole would start looking like the state championship contender that we thought they were back in the summer. Union had won their third straight and improved to 5-1 on the season and more importantly, 3-0 in district. October 15 – Beat Moore 56-14 It was Fall Break and while the majority of the state was playing on Thursday night, Union would travel back to the westside to face Moore on Friday night. Moore had started 5-0 on the season but was coming off their first loss of the year to Norman North. Things didn’t get much better with Union visiting the Lions. Union jumped out to a 28-0 lead early on in the second quarter and the Union offense would continue to light up the scoreboard throughout the night. Sophomore wide receiver [player_tooltip player_id="110747" first="Jino" last="Boyd"] had a big night with two touchdown catches as [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] would finish with three touchdown passes and another touchdown on the ground. Union improved to 6-1 following the win and they would turn their attention to Norman North. October 22 – Beat Norman North 30-14 Norman North gave Union all they wanted and then some as Union traveled to the westside for the second consecutive week. Union would escape with a 30-14 victory but this game was incredibly close for the majority of the game. Norman North led 14-13 in the third quarter and Union wouldn’t have their first lead until [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] would go 70+ yards for a touchdown. Union would eventually turn it on as Banks and [player_tooltip player_id="67771" first="Antonio" last="Smith"] combined for over 300 yards rushing and Banks finished with three touchdowns on the ground. And on the same night, Mustang would go on the road and upset Owasso. Because of that, Union would need just one more win to clinch the district championship and that would come at home against Southmoore. October 29 – Beat Southmoore 42-0 Union would return home for week nine and they would absolutely dominate Southmoore 42-0 and that win would clinch the district championship. Union would actually lead this game 42-0 at halftime and they would put the game in cruise control in the second half and Southmoore would never threaten the stingy Union defense. In fact, Union’s defense was so dominant in the first half of this game as they held Southmoore to negative yardage. And we also had some history in this game as Stephenie Pereff would come into the game for Union and kick an extra point and become the first girl in school history to score a point for the storied Union program. Union would go into week ten with no concerns of their playoff seeding as it was locked in. November 5 – Beat Edmond North 42-7 In the final game of the regular season and senior night, Union would take care of Edmond North to wrap up the regular season with a 9-1 record, a perfect district record and they would go into the playoffs as one of the district champs. Union’s first three touchdowns of the night would come from seniors on senior night as [player_tooltip player_id="112477" first="Da’Monn" last="Sanders"], [player_tooltip player_id="61138" first="Jayden" last="Rowe"] and [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] would all score to put Edmond North away early. A week after Pereff made history, she returned to the field once again for PAT duty and continued to make school history. Union jumped out to a 28-0 lead at halftime and would then lead 42-0 after three quarters. Edmond North avoided the shutout by scoring to make the final score 42-7 in favor of the home team. Quarterfinals – Beat Yukon 59-24 Union opened up their playoff journey against Yukon and a new era would begin for this football program. Earlier in the week, the school announced that they would move forward as the Union Redhawks. In their first playoff game, Union would roll to a 59-24 victory and they made it look easy to punch their ticket to the semifinals. Yukon would keep things close in the first half with an interception return for a touchdown and a kick returned for a touchdown but the Redhawks would respond to put the game away in the second quarter. After Yukon pulled within 21-17 on the kick return for a touchdown, Union would rattle off 31 points in the second and third quarter and would win 59-24. Up next would be a rematch with Broken Arrow, who knocked off Owasso in the first round. Semifinals – Beat Broken Arrow 17-14 For the third consecutive season, Broken Arrow and Union would face off in the playoffs and the Redhawks would end the Tigers’ season for the second consecutive season. Union would lead the game 10-0 but Broken Arrow erased that lead and would take a 14-10 advantage in the fourth quarter. But the Redhawks would immediately respond with a touchdown strike from [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] to [player_tooltip player_id="110747" first="Jino" last="Boyd"] with a little over six minutes to play to give them the 17-14 lead and ultimately the win. Broken Arrow would punt the ball with a little less than four minutes to play but the Tigers wouldn’t get the ball back as Union ran out the clock. The win would send the Redhawks to their first state title game since 2017 and a rematch with arch rival Jenks. Union Head Coach Kirk Fridrich Quote Book Fridrich On His Offense & [player_tooltip player_id="38703" first="Rovaughn" last="Banks"] Keeping The Offense Excelling. "A lot of the credit goes to Rovaughn. He’s been the heartbeat of our team and has done a great job this season. I don’t know how else to say it other than to say that I’m not sure a lot of people would respond the way he has to playing different positions throughout the year and he’s just done a great job with it. He’s a team captain for a reason for us. He’s been a great example for the coaches to point to, he’s been a great teammate, he’s really just an outstanding young man and he’s a guy that you want to coach for and do your best for." Fridrich On His Defense Being One Of The Better Units In 6A-1 This Year. "It was one of those things last year as we finished up the season, we were able to see that these kids were in position to make plays and played really strong towards the end of the year. We had a lot of guys returning so we thought it would a strong point of our team if we could pick up where we left off from last year and those guys have made plays." Fridrich On His Team Compared To The Week Two Game Against Jenks. "One of the things that caught us off guard and it shouldn’t have but it caught us off guard how hard Jenks plays. Those guys play extremely hard and I don’t feel like we matched our intensity as high as we should have in that first game. And for us, that’s a little bit out of character for us. We hope that we can play at the level that they play football at. They continue to play extremely strong for a few years now and it’ll be tough to knock off those champions. But when you talk about differences, our kids have figured out what level and what speed the plays need to be run at for our kids to have success." Fridrich On The Losing Team In The Backyard Bowl Being 7-3 In The Championship Rematch. "I’ll take that right now. There’s a lot that’s made out of that. There has been years where a team has won them both. Playing a team twice is so tough to do. When you play early on, it’s almost like a new season now. If we played them in week eight and then turned them around it might make more of a difference. A lot of those games where you look at 7-3 where you look at the rematches, I’m sure there’s a little bit of a revenge factor but when you’re playing for a gold ball, I don’t think it makes a whole lot of difference, I think it’s just two good football teams. The one that executes the best is probably going to win the game." Fridrich On The Big Keys To Getting A Win In The Championship. "I think special teams will be huge. I do think that when you have two defenses playing pretty well, turnovers will definitely be a big part of that. For us, you just watch up front. The team that can run the football is going to have a huge advantage. Sure there’s going to be big plays and some of those plays can be in the passing game but being able to run the football with the offensive lines that both teams have and the defensive lines that each team has. It really should look like an old school football game and it should be a lot of fun to watch and a lot of fun to coach in."