Sports

Bobby S. Carter, the coach of the Okarche boys’ lone state championship team in basketball, died Thursday, Dec. 23, in Elk City.He was 79 years old.Services were Tuesday, Dec. 28, in Hammon.Carter coached Okarche for 15 years in the 1970s and 1980s.

Kingfisher County has two teams ranked atop their class and two more among the top-three as we get set for the January push.Coaches across the state submit their top-20 teams in their class each week.Those rankings are compiled and released each Monday on ossaarankings. com.

Okarche’s Kinsey Neiderer picked up a big honor last week from the Great American Conference.A senior guard on the Northwestern Oklahoma State women’s basketball team, Neiderer was named the conference’s co-player of the week for women’s basketball for the week ending Dec. 18.

The Christmas break is here for local basketball teams.Well, except three of them.The Kingfisher and Lomega girls and Cashion boys will hit the hardwood between Christmas and New Year’s Day as they test themselves against some of the state’s best basketball competition.KHS will be playing Dec.

Xavier Ridenour missed his first two free throws in last Friday night’s game at Elk City.The next 12, however, were nothing but pure.

Okarche ended its pre-holiday schedule with another win over a ranked foe.The Lady Warriors on Friday rode the momentum of their hot start to a 58-43 win at Watonga.Watonga entered the night with a 5-1 mark and ranked 14th in Class 2A.However, the Lady Eagles quickly found themselves down 23-10.

The Lomega Raiders bounced back from their loss in the Canton Invitational with two convincing wins last week.The fi rst was an 82-46 thumping at home over Kremlin-Hillsdale on Tuesday. Lomega followed it up Friday with a 71-37 victory at Cherokee.

Kingfisher didn’t have an individual champ, but landed two in the finals at last weekend’s Kingfisher High School Invitational wrestling tournament. Dawson Garvin wasDawson Garvin was runner-up at 120 pounds and Rylee Toepfer repeated the effort at 126 pounds.

It doesn’t get much more brown than Elk City’s Pioneer Center.The court. The chairs. The walls. The ceiling.It’s all brown and brings with it a certain level of dreariness when one walks into the otherwise beautiful facility.But then Allison Green lit the place up.

Both of Hennessey’s basketball teams will be entering the break on a positive note.The HHS girls downed Harding Fine Arts 69-19 Tuesday at the Eagle Event Center and the boys followed suit with their own 75-33 victory.For coach Courtney Markes’ team, it was a second win in three games.