Sports

Kingfisher’s girls basketball team is the top seed in this weekend’s Compass Athletics Winter Basketball Classic in Woodward. The Lady Jackets are flying solo this week as the Kingfisher boys will be playing later this month in the Tournament of Champions in Tulsa. KHS plays Woodward JV at 4 p.m.

Cashion used a balancing act to get back into the state semifinals. The Wildcats ran and threw it effectively last Friday in taking apart Woodland 41-22 in a Class A quarterfinal at Maxon Field.

Tails never fails. Until it does. With the OSSAA opting this season to not hold football semifinals at neutral sites, this week’s Class A semifinal host came down to a coin flip between Cashion and Pawhuska. Cashion coach Lynn Shackelford got to call the toss at 10 a.m. Saturday. He called tails.

KINGFISHER SENIOR Ian Daugherty goes up for a shot in the paint against Elgin during last Friday night’s win. Daugherty and his KHS teammates were set to play Dec. 28-30 in the Tournament of Champions in Tulsa, but the event was canceled Tuesday.

Kingfisher will open the 56th annual Tournament of Champions against a fellow Class 4A state title contender. The brackets for the invitational-only tournament hosted by Tulsa Public Schools were released on Thursday. KHS will play Tulsa Webster at 8:30 p.m. Monday, Dec.

One thing Dover hasn’t been involved in this season is a close game. That changed on Tuesday. Joriaun Caldwell’s steal in the game’s waning moments sealed a frantic final minute that saw the Longhorns escape with a 51-50 home win against Waukomis.

Just under a year ago, John Hardaway told people to keep an eye on then-sophomore Austin Frazier. An unheralded bench player for Cashion at the time, Frazier was part of a team that qualified for the state tournament for the first time since 1995.

It was a night of “firsts” in Hennessey. Aly Seng made her debut as the Lady Eagles’ new coach in the first varsity basketball games played in the brand-new Eagle Event Center. Oh, and Hennessey got its first win of the season, too, as they beat Fairview 40-32.

Things are going either quite well or very poorly with your program when the coach raves about the fourth-quarter performance of a group that also played earlier in the JV game. In Kingfisher’s case, it’s all good right now.

Kingfisher had a freshman and sophomore making their first career starts, had one starter on the bench with a knee injury and another starter playing limited minutes due to her own knee ailments and was playing a team that qualified for last year’s 4A state tournament.