Annual Faith 7 game draws big crowd

Although no official count has been released, Saturday night’s Faith 7 basketball game drew the second-largest crowd this decade.
That’s the word from two members of the Faith 7 committee — chairman Bobby Canty and treasurer Sue Nelson.
Both said the 2002 game, featuring Midwest City’s DeAngelo Alexander and Stroud’s Kevin Bookout, had the largest turnout since 2000.
“We had a lot of people come from Stroud that year,” Nelson said.
The Oklahoma Faith 7 coaches, as well as Oklahoma Baptist University head coach Doug Tolin, believed Saturday night’s game would sell out because of the presence of small-town scoring sensations Keiton Page of Pawnee and Rotnei Clarke of Verdigris. Pawnee and Verdigris drew crowds exceeding 12,000 at the state tournament at Oklahoma City’s State Fair Arena.
Page and Clarke lived up to their scoring billing Saturday. Page, headed to Oklahoma State, established a new Oklahoma scoring mark with 34 points. Clarke, an Arkansas signee, tallied 29.
“It was still a good crowd that we drew,” said Canty, who has been affiliated with the Faith 7 game for 24 years.
Just how much money the Faith 7 organization will receive from the annual charity game has yet to be determined, Nelson said. All of the expenses have yet to be fully deducted. Among the expenses incurred were referee pay, T-shirts, trophies, travel, programs and some meals. Each player was given a free T-shirt.
Faith 7 received approximately $4,000 from the 2007 game.
All but 25 of the approximate 350 reserved tickets were sold and virtually all of the programs were purchased.
Some expenses are more irksome than others. When Myles Walker, a 6-foot-9-inch San Antonio product, declared his intention to play in Shawnee, a $102.50 one-way airline ticket was purchased in his behalf.
However, Walker backed out of his commitment and Faith 7 couldn’t recover the cost of the ticket. Texas then played with eight of its original 10 selections and was leveled 121-101 by Oklahoma.
Oklahoma has captured three straight victories for the third time since 1995 and holds a 6-3 advantage since 2000.
If Oklahoma prevails in the 2009 matchup, it would mark the first four-game Sooner State victory string in almost 20 years. The longest winning streak in the series (led by Oklahoma 31-17) is five — Oklahoma from 1986-1991.
Texas has never won more than two consecutive games and that has occurred only three times — 1969-70, 1991-92 and 2004-05.
Willie Warren, of North Crowley High School, also broke the Texas Faith 7 scoring record Saturday with 41 points.
One other Texas record went by the wayside with 34 made free throws. The previous record was 33 in 1980.
Oklahoma also converted 34 free throws but that was still way behind a record 44 in 1966. The inaugural 1966 contest went four overtimes with Oklahoma prevailing 140-133.
Saturday, there were 64 fouls — Oklahoma with 36 and Texas with 28.