Top seeds advance in County action

The top seeds on the girls bracket in the Comanche County Tournament did just what the coaches expected as the annual event opened Monday at the Great Plains Coliseum.

Top-seeded Chattanooga coasted past Indiahoma, 79-26, and No. 2 seeded Walters had little trouble with Big Pasture, rolling to a 63-26 victory.

Chatty girls used their pressure defense to force countless turnovers and sink shots as a result. Maecy Fischer led the Lady Warriors with 19 and Ella Mebane added 13 but they had plenty of help on offense and defense.

The final game wound up being the best of the night as Sterling beat arch-rival Fletcher, 46-34. Katie Milam and Ava Alexander led the way for the Tigers with 15 each while Anna Simmons and Sydney Ross each scored eight for Fletcher.’

The boys boys quarterfinal games are on deck tonight at the Coliseum. For the schedule, see the Scoreboard, Page 3B.

Walters press dooms BP

The Blue Devils are coming off a busy week where they played four games over the span of five days as the Slick Hills Invitational was snowed out on Friday and Saturday, thus forcing games on Monday and Wednesday.

“We wound up beating Hobart, 40-21, in the finals but we had a couple girls go down in that one and tonight I was somewhat limited,” Coach Chris Gates said. “I really wanted to see Vanoss but they didn’t come back after the snow. We wanted to go against a good team like them so it really bummed me out that they didn’t come back.”

Despite missing a couple of players, the Walters press was more than the young Lady Rangers could handle.

“I haven’t figured them up but before the Christmas break we were averaging forcing 30 turnovers a game, so that is what we do really well,” Gates said. “Rebounding; sometimes when we sub we don’t do as good a job on the boards. And we still are having some unforced errors that have cost us buckets.”

The one issue Gates doesn’t have to worry about is how hard this bunch works.

“Absolutely, this bunch always gives me 110 percent at practice and that makes it a fun bunch to coach,” he said. “We should have those other two back for Thursday (semifinals) and that should help us on both ends.”

Walters was led by Kayla Meason with 19, Rainey King and Kynlee Edgmon with 13 each and Phyl Jiang with 10. The young Rangers were led by Kaydi Skinner and Natalie Martin with eight each.

Geronimo advances

The Blue Jays didn’t get off to a great start but a 30-point second quarter got them well out in front and allowed Coach Bryce Abbe to use his depth.

“We play all nine of them, so I feel good about our depth but when we get against a big we just have trouble defending them,” Abbe said.

And with Tipton’s 5-9 Kamron Pool, it did cause the Blue Jays some trouble at times.

“We are learning how to defense the bigs and it’s something that takes time,” he said. “Both of my seniors—McKenzie Huffman and Alison Daly—are having to take that role. We use Alison at times just to give McKenzie a chance to do her old role which is score off the pass.”

But Huffman got in early foul trouble and that altered his plans even more.

“We need her on the floor but our success has to also come from shooting the three,” he said. “We ran into one stretch around Christmas where we didn’t play well but the last two or three we’ve played better.”

Huffman, despite spending a good deal of time on the bench, still scored 14 points, which was equalled by younger sister Abbey who played a solid game despite giving up height to most of the Tipton defenders. Kenzie Latimer added 13 for the Blue Jays while Jayla Fiero led Tipton with 12, all from long range.