COP/ARVEST TOURNEY: BHS teams both earn runner-up spots
Bartlesville High School’s Dennis Duncan (12) dives for a loose ball during the COP/Arvest Invitational held at Bartlesville High School on Jan. 11, 2024. The Bruins earned the runner-up spot.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
Bartlesville High School’s Sami Sheafer goes to the basket during the COP/Arvest Invitational at Bartlesville High School.. The Lady Bruins earned the runner-up spot.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
(Note: Bartlesville will be home Tuesday (Jan. 14) to play Northwest Classen. Live game action is available on KWON Radio (1400 AM) for KWON-TV. A written report is planned by Bartlesville Area Sports Report.)
Scrappy, scrambling, scampering, scavenging.
Any way one looks at it, the Bartlesville High School Bruins tried whole-heartedly to deliver a scintillating performance Saturday (Jan. 11) afternoon but couldn't keep up with Southmoore High School’s scorching transition and long-range shooting offense.
Southmoore scampered back home with a 72-36 victory, in a battle more competitive than the final score suggested.
Bartlesville (2-8) and Southmoore (7-2) collided at the Bruin Fieldhouse in the boys championship game at the ConocoPhillips/Arvest Basketball Invitational.
Bartlesville had advanced on a 36-35 first-round win against Ponca City and on a semifinal forfeit by Millwood. Southmoore received a bye in the first round and hammered Carl Albert in the semifinals, 77-57.
The scenario wasn’t set up well for Bartlesville against a Southmoore SaberCats team with adept depth and a scintillating up-and-down team with one gear — pedal to the metal.
But the shorter and less experienced Bruins came out battling with Brobdingnagian resolve.
Southmoore put up the first two points on a layup, 2-0, and then doubled it to 4-0 on Joey Folsom’ secondary transition deuce.
Bartlesville answered with a gritty possession during which Titus Huck missed a shot, rebounded it, missed the followup but the Bruins kept the possession and got the ball in the hands of Trae Collins who zipped it to an open Jordan Turner in the left corner. Turner buried the trey to cut Southmoore’s lead to 4-3.
Bartlesville — which is coached by Tommy DeSalme — continued to keep pace for a while. After Southmoore went up, 6-3, Nash Zervas dropped in a layup (with a friendly bounce off the rim) to make it a one-point game again.
The Bruin offense then hit a cold spell, however, allowing Southmoore to put an 11-0 run to end the first quarter. It would have been bigger, but Bruin defender Dennis Duncan made a big-time transition defensive play to get down and prevent an easy layup.
Bartlesville’s offense displayed more life in the second quarter. Bruin freshman Brycen Gutierrez snapped the nets with a three-pointer to force Southmoore’s lead back to a single-digit, 20-12.
When the SaberCats tried to pull away during this stretch the Bruins generally had an answer. During one Bruin possession, Zervas grabbed an offensive rebound, leading to a Collins’ trey that whittle Southmoore’s lead back to 10 points, 25-15.
If not for a couple of five-second violations in the quarter, the Bruins might have gathered some momentum to make a bigger run.
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Bartlesville High School’s Brycen Gutierrez (20) sells a fake during the COP/Arvest Invitational championship game on Jan. 11, 2024. The Bruins earned the runner-up spot.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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But after another huge Bruin defensive play — with E.J. Belisle blocking a short Southmoore jumper — the SaberCats motored out to a 21-point lead, 38-17, late in the second quarter.
Duncan flushed a trey — off an assist from Gutierrez — for Bartlesville’s final points of the half. The Bruins trailed by 20 going into the second half, 40-20.
The pattern of play continued pretty much the same in the third quarter — the Bruins gave up points grudgingly but scored with even more hesitancy. In addition to keeping up full-court man pressure the entire game — with an emphasis on shot prevention — the SaberCats excelled in seamless defensive switches to disrupt the Bruins’ screen and roll moves.
After Southmoore — which kept its full-court man pressure up the entire game — went up, 50-23, Zervas canned a three-pointer. By the end of the third quarter the Sabercats led by 29, 56-27. Southmoore pulled out to a 36-point win.
Two players off the bench contributed nine total points for the Bruins — Luke Massey (five) and Michael Kent (four free throws).
Duncan finished with a team-high eight points, followed by Zervas with seven — one of the few games this season he’s been held to less than double-digits.
Gutierrez added five, followed by Turner with four and Trae Collins with three.
Next up the Bartlesville plays host Tuesday to Northwest Classen (6:30 p.m. girls; 8 pm. boys), and hits the road Friday for Jenks.
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LADY BRUINS
For the second time this week, Bartlesville girls had to take on Broken Arrow, this time for Saturday’s girls championship of the COP/Arvest tourney.
Broken Arrow (10-1) powered to a 65-24 win, limiting the Lady Bruins (6-4) to their lowest point total of the season.
The previous Tuesday (Jan. 7), Broken Arrow had downed the Lady Bruins, 82-44, at Broken Arrow.
Bartlesville advanced to Saturday’s championship by surprising Carl Albert in the first round, 53-49.
In that game, Alayah Lunn and Sami Sheaffer buried 22 and 17 points, respectively, to pace Bartlesville to its third-highest scoring total of the season.
Sheaffer also yanked down 10 rebounds and handed out four assists. Lunn added seven boards.
Emma Zimmerman came up just shy of a double-double (10 points, eight boards) and Kennedy Nubel and Cadence Gray secured eight and seven rebounds, respectively; Kenzie Denny added four boards and an assist.