DURANT- Teams from Oklahoma, Texas and Arkansas gathered in Durant for the 23rd Annual Lions Basketball Classic.
The Classic didn’t go well for the host team. Both the Durant Lions and Lady Lions let games slip by them as they fell into the loser bracket. The boys team fell to Shawnee 42-34 and the Lady Lions fell to Westmoore 42-35.
Boys:
It was the one that got away.
The Lions had a 20-15 led at halftime, but watched it slip away in the second half and loss by 8 points.
Durant Lion Cole Hughes had a good night shooting from the field and finished with 13 poinst. Zac Cater had 8 points, Will Engle had 6 points, Sky Lowe had 3 points, James Donelan and Cameron Schuessler had 2 points.
Both teams trade buckets in the first period and the Lions led 8-6. Then the Lions pulled away in the second period as Hughes, Engle and Schuessler all scored in the period. But Shawnee kept it close and pulled with five points at halftime, 20-15.
The third period is when the game got away from the Lions. Shawnee would go on an 8-2 run in the early part of the period then took the lead after 3-pointer with 3 minutes remaining in the period and never looked back. Shawnee led 32-26 heading into the final frame.
The Lions would come with in 3 points of Shawnee in the fourth period. At the 3:19 mark, the Lions trailed 33-39 after Hughes hit a 3-pointer and followed it up with lay-up and Cater drove the lane for a basket. However, Shawnee would finish the game with a closing 6-1 run for the win.
“We did a lot of good things on defense. On the offensive end, we settled a little bit more on jump shots than we needed to,” said head coach Jason Wilkerson, “We were impatient a lot of times on offense. But we played real hard, but our energy in the second half wasn’t the same as it was in the first half.”
The Durant Lions will face Norman Tigers today at 3 p.m.
Girls:
The Lady Lions were in a feverish fight with Westmoore Lady Jags, but the Lady Lions couldn’t overcome 21 turnovers and the Westmoore won 42-35.
Lady Lion Katie Caraway had 11 points, Shelby Barrett had 8 points, Sierra Wilhite had 5 points, Rheagan Jones and Morgan Steve had 4 points and Rylie Richards had 3 points.
It was cold shooting for the Lady Lions in the first period and trailed 10-4 heading into the second period.
The Lady Jags began the second period with a 10-2 run at the 5 minute mark. Then the Lady Lions bounced back with a 11-6 run to end the period. The Lady Lions trailed 26-17 at halftime. Caraway, Wilhite, Steve, Barrett and Jones would all score in the period.
Not much scoring happened in the third period. But, the Lady Lions outscored Westmoore 8-7 and trailed 33-25.
Durant began to rally in the opening minutes of the fourth period. The Lady Lions went on a 5-2 run and pulled within 5 points of Westmoore with 4:31 remaining in the game, 35-30.
The Lady Lions would barley outscore the Lady Jags 10-9 but it was too little, too late.
“Right now we are playing two out of four quarters,” said head coach Chad Rumer, “The first two quarters we loss, the next two quarters we won. We are going to be alright once we put four quarters together, if we keep playing like this we are going to keep getting the same results. Also, we turnover the ball way too much - with 21 turnovers and they had nine. With a game like that, we lose by seven, we go 1-for-18 from the 3-point line, if we hit three buckets somewhere during the game, we would have been fine. We are almost there, we got to find a way to get over the hump.” said Rumer.
The Lady Lions will face the Springdale Lady Bulldogs today at 1:40 p.m.
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