No masking the truth
KHS still dominant at the Buckle, but the finals must wait
JUST ONE day after a procedure to reset her broken nose, Ela Hartman scored 18 points to lead KHS to a semifinal win over Woodward. [Photo by Chris Simon/www.simon-sports-photos. smugmug.com]
Kingfisher’s dominant week continued Thursday night.
And it also ended. The Lady Jackets beat a foe by 30-plus points for the third time in as many days and earned the right to play for their sixth consecutive Buckle of the Wheatbelt Invitational championship.
They’ll just have to wait until this week to try to win it.
KHS thumped Woodward 64-33 in the semifinals. That was one day after the Lady Jackets downed Chisholm 61-20 in the tournament’s opener.
And that came after Kingfisher blitzed Blanchard on the road Tuesday night in a regular season game (see related story).
But there was no championship game Friday as the very storm system that pushed the tournament up a day is delaying the thirdplace and championship games until this Wednesday.
Kingfisher and Weatherford will be in that girls’ championship game yet again at 6:30 p.m.
Woodward was able to hang with Kingfisher for a quarter as the Boomers’ Taylor Floyd scored 12 points and had her team within 15-14.
But Floyd didn’t score again and the Lady Jackets went on a 19-4 run in the second quarter.
The quarter was capped by a Reese Roof 3-pointer, but prior to that the Lady Jackets got one each from Mattie Slezickey and Ela Hartman.
The latter was one day removed from a surgical procedure to have her broken nose reset. Hartman had it broken last Friday against Elgin, but returned to play Tuesday at Blanchard.
She missed Wednesday morning’s game as she was having the procedure done, but came off the bench against Woodward to score a game-high 18 points.
She picked up steam in the third with 9 points as Kingfisher outscored Woodward 18-9 to extend its lead to 52-27.
Slezickey ended her night with 12 points while Abbie Myers scored 10.
Slezickey made three 3-pointers and had a threepoint play while scoring 18 against Chisholm.
KHS was up 21-3 after a quarter and 35-5 by halftime.
Roof also buried three treys as part of her 17 points while Myers chipped in 10 again.
Taitym Walker and Kendall Farrar scored 7 apiece.
KHS is now 13-3 and ranked No. 6 in 4A.
Weatherford is 14-2 and ranked No. 11 and stunned No. 8 and second-seeded Harrah 40-39 to get back to the championship game.
This will be the fourth straight year KHS and Weatherford have battled for the tournament title. The Lady Jackets downed Weatherford 40-35 in 2023, 47-32 in 2024 and 46-45 last season.