On homecoming night on Tuesday, our Tornado boys and girls hosted Woodland.
Before the game, the Tornado boys had lost to Woodland twice, once in the Agra Tournament and once at Woodland — both of them close games.
Lady Tornadoes The woodland girls had also lost two close games to the Lady Tornadoes.
Well, the Tornado boys won 49-36, but the Woodland girls won 42-35. The Lady Tornadoes led almost the whole game, but going into the fourth, leading 29-25, they only scored 6 points. This was a physical, chippy game. The Woodland girls don’t know how physical Woodland was the other two games we played them, but this was awful. The thing is, the refs want to let the teams play physical, but it almost always gets way out of hand as the refs don’t know when to stop the mayhem and it gets to the point of no return.
Lauren Janzen got hot in the first quarter with 14 points hitting two threes. The ladies led 15-12 after 1, but got held to one point in the second quarter. The game was like Roller Derby.The third quarter, the ladies outscored Woodland 13-6 as Makay Reed, Janzen, Aubree Brimmer, Alyssa Roe, Braylon Wright and Evie Ools all scored in the third. One of the Woodland girls who hadn’t done much in the other two games had 20 in this one. She hit six threes and we just did not guard her. We should have but we didn’t.
Janzen led the Lady Tornadoes with 16; Reed had 8, hitting a three; Aubrey Brimmer, 4; Roe hit a three; Wright hit a three and Ools had one point in the last quarter. Ools had quite a few offensive rebounds.
The next game was Depew, where the Lady Tornadoes hadn’t won in seven years. The Lady Hornets came out fired up and we didn’t seem to have any Raid.
We were behind 6-4 after after one, but in the second quarter, we outscored them 11-2 with our defensive pressure, and led 15-8 at the half.
Aubree “Breezy” Brimmer hit a three pointer and Janzen had three points in the second. Both teams had six points in the third quarter. Wright hit a three. The last quarter was pretty tight as Depew got as close as 2118, but then Roe took over and had six big points, driving the basketball and the ladies won 29-19.
Roe led with 9 points, Wright 5, hitting a three; Reed, 4; Janzen, 3; Brimmer, 3 and Ools 3..
I know 29-19 isn’t high scoring game, but again, the refs let it get way too physical again. The Lady Tornadoes always play real good defense, but sometimes there are lapses. Tornado boys On homecoming night, the varsity boys weren’t about to lose three times to Woodland. Rhett Cearly came to play with 16 points — 8 in the final quarter.Playing inside, Keagan Wad had 10 points, hitting a three with quite a few assists. Garrett Wright had 7, hitting a three. Keaton Jensen had six points, Zaiden “Blue” Stewart hit two threes for six and Kypton Ward had four with 2-2 at the free throw line.
Cearly had several blocks. It was 22-12 Tornadoes at the half. Sammy Blackburn played hard.
Then we went to the gym at Depew where we hardly ever win and I don’t ever want to go back. I said that a long time ago. Maybe someday I will mean it. We lost 47-43. Oh, we came out getting ahead 13-3 and it looked like we were going to win this time, but we forgot to guard their best shooter, Carson Kinney, who hit six threes and finished with 26 points — they only had 47 points total.
One time there was nobody within 15 feet of him. This time they didn’t pass it to him. It can’t be that hard to figure out who the hot shooter is. The third quarter was tense and that’s when most teams win as Depew outscored us 19-8 and Kinney was the main reason. Several others Depew players hit big shots and big free throws, but nothing like Kinney.
Our guys played hard the whole game, but came out flat in the third quarter. Our guys can get way too excited and Depew had a big verbal abuse section yelling all sorts of crap at our guys.
The Tornadoes were down 35-25 going into the fourth and Wright led a comeback and we even got ahead 39-38 with about two and a half minutes to go and, I don’t even want to say the Depew player’s name, brought them back.
It was 45-43 Depew, with seven seconds left and Wright drove the basket and scored and was fouled. Only one of the refs called Wright with an offensive foul — can we get a replay on that? But there is no replay in high school games. It’s the only time I ever wanted to see one. One person saw the game on Hudl, but they didn’t play the last minute and a half on it, or ran out of tape. I thought it was a bad call.
When our guys were fouling to get the ball back, a minor skirmish happened right in front of the Depew verbal abuse bunch and it got wild, but not for very long.
Depew made the two free shots and won 47-43 on their senior night.
Wright led with 14 points, nine of them in the fourth, he hit a three earlier; Jensen had 11 points, six in the first quarter, Keagan Ward had 8, hitting a three pointer that helped start a rally; “Blue” Stewart had five, playing hard; Sammy Blackburn had 4 and drew a charge. Two of our players had Type B flu.
The Hornets, over the last 2 and a half seasons, have beaten us six straight times.
It’s time to forget about Depew, because districts are Saturday night against Hominy. Oilton goes to Mulhall; Olive will host Woodland and Earlsboro. Dove Science will play at Metro Christian and Tulsa Webster will also be there. Yale goes to Amber Poccaset. Drumright shot six out of 18 free throws in the Depew game.