Lady Diamonds’ defense keys homeopening win

Warriors win, Grizzles receive a loss

SALLISAW 43, POTEAU 40

The Sallisaw Lady Diamonds were able to maintain the lead during Friday’s season home opener, but they could’ve had a comfortable lead if they had been able to convert defensive turnovers into baskets.

The win at Paul Post Fieldhouse improves Sallisaw’s record to 2-0. And while head coach Greg Scott is happy with the win, he knows there’s still work to be done.

Scott recognizes that if his squad wants to keep winning, it’ll need to stop relying on Sallisaw’s top two scorers, Ellie Martin and Addyson Gream, and spread the rock around to other shooters.

“Our defense was the key for us tonight. We were able to cause several turnovers with our pressure,” Scott recalled. “We have to get better at converting our turnovers into points, but it’s early and I like the direction we are headed. We had several opportunities to extend our lead throughout the game, but never could pull away.”

The Lady Diamonds didn’t help their cause, making just 16 of 32 from the free throw line. Martin was able to pick up the scoring load – she was very aggressive in attacking the basket, making huge plays down the stretch.

Martin finished with 17 points and four rebounds, while Gream had a doubledouble on the night, contributing 12 points and 11 rebounds to the effort.

The Lady Diamonds played at Spiro Tuesday night, and travel to Stigler for a 6:30 p.m. tipoff Friday against the Panthers.

KEOTA 62, GANS 16

Gans just couldn’t keep up with the talented and undefeated Keota Lady Lions on Friday, but the Lady Grizzlies knew that going into the non-district road game.

Head coach Laney James did have the Lady Grizzlies try some thing different on defense, but it wasn’t enough to stop the talented Keota squad.

“We changed our defense up a little bit, and my girls executed that very well,” James explained. “We just need to fix a few little things with it, which we plan on improving every day. We caused Keota to make a lot of deflections and turnovers,” James said.

The Gans offense continues to improve, and they looked better while pushing the ball and driving in, but the girls just couldn’t get their shots to go in.

“We’re still not where we want it to be, but we are on the right track driving in on offense. We just couldn’t get our shots to go in.”

One of the major points the Lady Grizzlies worked on and continue working on is their shooting.

“I was very proud of them for their free throw shooting,” James said. “We shot 75% from the free throw line, which was an improvement from last game’s 50% from the line. Everything is starting to come together. It’s still early in the season, and we are working hard and getting better every day.”

Gans hosted Bokoshe Tuesday, at tip off Friday at 6:30 p.m. against local rival Central.

WEBBERS FALLS 64, BRAGGS 11

Admittedly, Friday’s game got out of hand in a hurry when the skilled Webbers Falls Lady Warriors rolled past outmanned Braggs to win by more than 50 points.

New head coach Jordan Garner was surely pleased with the performance of this young squad and their early wins that upped their record to 2-0.

The Lady Warriors began play in their first tournament of the season Tuesday night against Schulter at the Wilson Tiger Classic near Henryetta.