Chicks filleted as KHS gets road sweep
An already shorthanded Kingfisher girls basketball team had even fewer of its bullets in its final game before the Christmas break.
But it was still enough to remain unbeaten.
KHS struggled offensively, but maintained its stellar defensive play in winning 38-25 last Friday at Chickasha.
The Lady Jackets have been without junior Rayland Garner, last season’s leading scorer, who is out for the season with a knee injury.
Kate Henderson, a freshman who was the first off the bench, injured an ankle two weeks ago and could be out another month.
On top of that, the Lady Jackets were missing junior starting point guard Ally Stephenson.
The latter’s absence was certainly felt early as Chickasha used full-court pressure to slow down the Lady Jackets and the KHS offense struggled to find a groove.
Kingfisher had just seven points in the first quarter and 18 at the half.
The biggest bright spot in all that was senior Britt Taylor.
She and freshman Peyton Walker combined to score the team’s first 11 points and Chickasha had no answer for her in the post.
Taylor was the lone Lady Jacket to shootbetter than 50 percent.
She ended her night with 18 points, six rebounds and four assists.
Kingfisher was just 3 of 22 from 3-point range (13.6 percent), but Taylor made her lone attempt.
Her steadiness on offense and Chickasha’s own struggles helped Kingfisher slowly gain some distance on the scoreboard.
While KHS only had 26 points through three quarters, it still led by eight points. Chickasha didn’t score more than seven points in any quarter.
Kingfisher shot just 32 percent from the field, but held the Lady Chicks to 16.3 percent.
That included going 3 of 25 (12 percent) from beyond the 3-point line.
Emily Myers finished with six points, five rebounds and five assists for the Lady Jackets as they improved to 7-0.
Walker ended her night with five points.
Jackets dominate Chicks from opening tip
Chickasha was in an unenviable position.
Not only were the Fighting Chicks hosting 4A’s No. 1 team in Kingfisher, but the Jackets were playing their last game for three weeks.
AND they were coming off a loss.
So it was no surprise the Jackets started quickly, scored the game’s first 18 points and cruised to a 91-38 victory.
The Chicks struggled to even get it past the half-court line early as Kingfisher came out aggressively both offensively and defensively.
On top of some easy buckets, Maverick Ridenour was hot early from beyond the 3-point line.
He made all three attempts in the first quarter, including one just before the buzzer for a 28-11 lead. He started the second with yet another as the advantage grew to 20 points.
It continued to swell as the Jackets were up 51-21 at halftime.
No starter played minutes in the fourth quarter, but all of them still scored in double figures.
Bijan Cortes poured in 27 points on 10 of 16 shooting. He added 11 assists and five steals.
Jarret Birdwell missed only one shot all night and scored 19 points.
Ridenour ended the third quarter with his fifth trey and scored 16 points.
Matthew Stone got going late and scored 13 points to go with 12 rebounds and seven assists.
The lone starter who didn’t score - Ian Daugherty - still grabbed four of his six rebounds on the offensive end and added two assists and two steals.
The Jackets shot 57 percent overall, including 23 of 31 (74 percent) from two-point range.
They scored 34 points off 24 Chickasha turnovers while only having eight themselves. KHS also had 26 assists and 14 steals in the game as it upped its mark to 6-1.