Grizzlies open home slate 2-0 after wins over Keota, Oaks

After the Gans High School basketball teams were routed in their season openers Nov. 27 at Okay, both the Grizzlies and Lady Grizzlies responded with a pair of resounding home victories at Bryant “Big Country” Reeves Fieldhouse — Friday night over Keota and Monday night over Oaks.

The Grizzlies tamed the Keota Lions 46-44, then routed the Oaks Warriors 63-41.

The Lady Grizzlies won both home games rather lopsidedly as they handled the Lady Lions 34-17 and the Lady Warriors 46-23.

In the boys’ win over Keota, the Grizzlies (2-1) led 24-18 after a quarter, but the Lions cut their deficit to 3632 at halftime and 43-40 entering the final period. However, Gans was able to keep Keota at bay the rest of the way.

For the game, Josh Brunk scored a game-high 18 points and Mayson Clifton added 14 points to lead the Grizzlies, followed by Nakota White with seven points, Ashton Langston with four points and Bryce Stevens with a free throw.

In the boys’ victory over Oaks, the Grizzlies trailed 7-6 with 3:49 left in the first quarter after a 3-point basket by Oaks, but Gans ended the period with an 10-2 run, capped by a pair of Brunk free throws with 45 seconds remaining in the quarter, to take a 16-9 lead into the second period.

A 9-0 run, called by a Brunk basket with 3:09 remaining in the first half, put Gans ahead 25-9, but the Warriors responded with an 8-0 run to cut their deficit to 25-17 with 58 seconds left before halftime. Gans enjoyed a 27-19 lead at halftime, which became a 33-24 advantage going into the fourth quarter.

In the final period, the Grizzlies built as much as a 21-point lead on three occasions, the last time coming at 63-51 with 51 seconds left to play on a basket by Jessie Phillips.

“Right now, I feel like we’re kind of in our rebuilding stage, but I’ve got guys really stepping up,” Gans boys coach Brian Morton said. “They’re stepping into some roles. I saw our guards play really unselfish (against Oaks). They were trying to hammer the ball into our big sophomore (Brunk). Josh had 46 points and had an outstanding game, but he still made a lot of mistakes. We’re going to work on those. You can’t have that kind of game unless you have good supporting staff behind you. I really felt like the boys really set him up well (against the Warriors). Defensively, the points we gave up were eight feet outside the 3-point line. We don’t consistently guard those shooters. We gave up some easy buckets, and we had some unforced turnovers. We’ve got to fix that.”

For the game, Brunk outscored the entire Oaks roster as he lit up the nylon for a whopping game-high 46 points, followed by Stephens with seven points and Clifton, Langston, White, Phillips and Gabriel Christopherson with two points apiece.

In the girls’ victory over Keota, the Lady Grizzlies (2-1) doubled up the Lady Lions 10-5 at the end of a quarter, then put away the game with a 10-0 second period for a 20-5 halftime advantage. Gans took a 26-11 lead into the final quarter.

For the game, Melania Paniagua scored a gamehigh 12 points to lead the Lady Grizzlies, followed by Brianna Burris with nine points, Reina Gaona and Aaliyah Taylor with four points each, K’Cee Osburn and Stevie Pratt each with two points and Destiny Phillips with a free throw.

In the girls’ win over Oaks, the Lady Grizzlies scored the first eight points of the game for an 8-0 lead after Pratt’s basket with 4:47 left in the first quarter.

The Lady Warriors went on a 7-1 run to cut the Gans lead to 9-7 with 2:41 remaining in the period.

Gans ended the quarter on a 6-2 run to take a 15-9 lead into the second period, where it was all Lady Grizzlies as they shut out the Lady Warriors 17-0 to take a 32-9 advantage into the locker rooms at halftime. Gans had a 42-11 lead going into the fourth quarter, in which there was a running clock.

“It’s just building the girls’ confidence,” Gans girls coach Laney James said about these two home games as compared to the season-opening loss against Okay. “We’re working hard every day. They’ve learned what they needed to fix. We’re making the little tweaks we’ve been needing to make. We’re just preparing ourselves to be the best we can be every single day.”

Paniagua scored a gamehigh 13 points to lead Gans, followed by Osburn with nine points, Gaona and MaKinzie Kimble with six points each and Pratt, Mafe Reis and Burris each with four points.