Area girls hoops: Bartlesville blasts to 10th win; CV downs Dewey
Some mountain ridges seem at first too steep to reach. After a group of upwardly mobile trendsetters crawl up on bloody knees and elbows to reach a sub-summit, the view seems stunning.
That’s where the Bartlesville High School girls basketball team stood Friday night.
Prior to that, the Lady Bruin hoopsters had struggled and suffered through four straight single-digit win seasons.
Paced by Alayah Lunn, Mikka Chambers and Kennedy Nubel with 15, 13 and 11 points, respectively, the Lady Bruins thrust past visiting Enid, 58-33, while the Bartlesville faithful showered well-deserved praise on their heads and the coaching staff, led by Justyn Shaw.
The significance of the victory was multi-faceted — Bartlesville improved to 10-8 — the program’s best showing since the 2018-19 season (18-8). Bartlesville also improved to 5-1 in its last six games and 3-6 in the overall district standings. For an extra bonus, Bartlesville avenged a loss to Enid in the first meeting (49-45).
In other area girls action Friday, Caney Valley outlasted Dewey in a battle of Washington County rivals and Wesleyan Christian School dropped a road game at Foyil.
Following are more details of each game:
GIRLS: Bartlesville 58, Enid 33
This might have been the strongest full-game effort all season for Bartlesville. The Lady Bruins avoided those scoring lulls that had been so costly in several previous games — and they upped their scoring in each quarter.
Lunn’s two three-pointers in the third quarter and Nubel’s five points in the final period kept the Bartlesville attack flowing.
The Lady Bruins bolted to a double-digit lead, 15-4, to start the second quarter as Lunn nailed a weakside three-pointer set up by Grace McPhail’s cross court over the top pass.
Emma Zimmerman zapped Enid with a nice sequence — a defensive rebound on one side, followed several seconds later by a pull-up trey to widen the gap to 19-6. In the latter part of the quarter, Nubel absorbed a charge — which put her down hard on her back — leading to two points on the other end by Chambers for a 23-9 lead.
Nubel opened the second half scoring with a left-side layup — set up by Cassie Snead’s pass and the rout continued to intensify. Later in the third period, Snead also earned an assist on a three-point net-burner by Chambers.
Snead also assisted late in the quarter on a three-pointer by Lunn. Going into the final period Bartlesville led by 17, 41-24.
Nubel notched a trey — as an exclamation point — for Bartlesville’s next-to-final bucket of the game.
Bartlesville finished off its scoring when McPhail got control of the ball on the defensive end, dribbled forward and then launched a perfect three-quarters’ court strike to a streaking Snead, who finished off the transition with a layup.
Next up, Bartlesville is set to be home Monday and back on the road Tuesday.
Enid: 4-6-14-9 — 33Bartlesville: 12-13-16-17 — 58
BartlesvilleAlayah Lunn 15, Emma Zimmerman 8, Mikka Chambers 13, Adrianne Flick 2, Cassie Snead 7, Kennedy Nubel 11, Cadence Gray 2.
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GIRLS: Caney Valley 42, Dewey 27
What a difference 24 days can make.
Going into its game on Jan. 9, the CV Lady Trojans had stumbled out to a 3-6 mark in its first nine games of the season. Since then, the late-blooming squad has squeezed out boisterous notes of success out of the accordion of success.
With this victory Friday, Caney Valley improved to 11-7 overall and 8-1 in its last nine games. To top it off, for the first time this season the Lady Trojans held back-to-back opponents to less than 30 points.
“It’s been a common thread for us these last 10 or 11 games,” CV head coach Deric Longan said. “Our defense has stiffened us and our offense is doing just enough.”
Leading the way on the scoring end were Kensly Foreman and Chloe Scherman with 17 and 13 points, respectively. Libby Thompson netted five points, followed by Myah Edwards, three, Amaya Toftee, three; and Syndi Brown, two.
In the Lady Trojans’ previous game, Toftee dialed in a team-high 12 points, followed by Scherman with 11.
“We’ve been fortunate lately,” Longan said. “It’s a different girl every night leading us scoring. … Going forward that’s going to benefit us. Dewey really pressured our guards tonight.”
We got off to a slow start,” said Dewey head coach Michael Sanders. “We just can’t the ball through the net right now. We have to rely on our defense so much.”
But, after trailing at halftime by 12, 20-8, Dewey (6-12) was outscored by only three points, 22-19, in the second half.
“We found a way to get the ball in the bottom of the net in the second half,” Sanders said. “We’re getting better every game. We’re still so young. Scoring will come eventually.”
Cayenne Chinn hit 10 points to lead Dewey, followed by Kaci Swan with six and Chanley Herren with four.
NOTES: Caney Valley won the season series (3-0) against Dewey. … Dewey has scored exactly 27 points three games in a row.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Area girls hoops: Bartlesville blasts to 10th win; CV downs Dewey
