By Bruce Campbell, Staff Writer
Enid’s girls will be facing two different challenges when Lawton Eisenhower and Lawton High School visit the Mabee Center today and Saturday in high school basketball action.
The Lawton Ike girls-boys doubleheader will tip off at 6:30 tonight, but the Lawton High twinbill will begin at 3:30 p.m. Saturday.
Lawton Eisenhower (2-3) is known for its quickness. Lawton (3-1), ranked No. 8 in Class 6A, is led by 6-foot-3 center Kendra Suttles, who has committed to Oklahoma State.
Both Ike (66-38) and Enid (57-36) lost to Cache, ranked No. 1 in Class 4A, at last week’s Altus Tournament.
“I think we match up better with them than we did with Cache,’’ said Enid coach Layne Jones. “They are young, but they are real athletic. We’re going to have to hook up and play well to beat them.’’
Suttles presents some matchup problems for a Pacer team not known for its height.
“She is as good as it gets as far as any individual players that we will see,’’ Jones said. “It’s going to be hard to find anybody better than her.’’
The back-to-back games Jones said will provide a tournament atmosphere for the Pacers (3-3). Enid is 2-0 at home.
“This will give us an idea of what we need to work on during Christmas break,’’ Jones said. “You want to have some momentum going into the break.’’
Freshman Courtney Chelf leads the Pacers attack with a 12.0 average. She is followed by Rani Melvin (8.7), Haley Rasp (6.3),Ty Washington (5.3), Regan Crowl (5.0) and Jayci Wehrenberg (3.7).
The Pacers hit 13 of 25 free throws against Stillwater. They had come into the game shooting 36 percent.
“The more we play offensively against people other than ourselves, the better we’ll get at it,’’ Jones said. “We just need some more repetitions.’’
The No. 18-ranked Plainsmen (4-2) will be riding the momentum of a 45-38 win over Stillwater against No. 14 Lawton Eisenhower (2-3) and unranked Lawton (2-2).
Lawton Eisenhower returns all five starters from last year’s 4-20 team. Lawton returned only one starter from a 22-6 team which went to the Class 6A state tournament.
“We haven’t been able to get a lot of information on them because they haven’t played a lot of teams from Oklahoma,’’ said Enid coach T.J. Scholz. “Traditionally, they both like to go up and down. We’re going to have to make sure we’re ready to play and take care of our own business.’’
The Plainsmen will be looking for more consistency after a roller coaster game with Stillwater.
Enid won despite going scoreless the last 4:28 of the first half and scoring only three points for a stretch of 6:44 in the second half. The Pioneers took advantage of the later drought to go from being down 29-22 to taking a 33-32 lead.
The Plainsmen, though, finished the game with a 11-0 run over the last 2:46.
“It was a weird game,’’ Scholz said. “I don’t know what happened. We were playing hard, but our shots weren’t falling. I think we kind of relaxed when we got the lead. I was proud of how we fought back and won.’’
Chris Fitzpatrick (23.0 ppg), Alex Patterson (11.7) and Gibson Rose (9.0) have formed a solid backcourt. Scholz has been pleased with Zach Siewert (2.5) and Clint Gamble (6.8) inside.
Gamble had eight rebounds against Stillwater, including six offensive board in the third period.
“He was a man out there,’’ Scholz said. “It’s always nice to get more than one chance on the floor.’’
Siewert, Scholz said, “has been the heart and soul of the team .... no one has played harder than he has. He’s always on the ground.’’
KGWA Radio (960 AM) will air both games.
