MIAMI – The Grove Lady Ridgerunners have gotten back to what they do best this past week. The result has been two big wins over a pair of quality opponents.
The Lady Ridgerunners made two-for-two this week as they followed up Tuesday’s home win over Vinita with a 41-21 win at Miami on Friday.
The win was the seventh straight for the Grove girls over Miami dating back to 2009 and slowed a spurt that had seen MHS win back-to-back games with Jay and Pryor after a four-game skid.
The 21 points matched the season-low output for the Lady Wardogs, who had lost to Oologah 29-21 on Jan. 4.
“We put some points on the board in the first quarter and defensively didn’t let anything happen,” Grove coach Richard Bassett.
Mason Jeffries led Grove with a game-high 14 points.
“I just don’t think we were focused from the start,” Miami coach Brian Busby said.
Alyssa Hammons had a team-high eight points for the Lady Wardogs while Michaela Martin added five.
The most notable stats: Hannah Chenoweth and Kelcee Welch went scoreless in the game.
“When she goes zero (pointing to Welch’s spot on the scorebook), she goes zero (referring to Chenoweth) and she only goes five (Martin), you’re in trouble,” Busby said.
The Lady Wardogs downed only six field goals on the night and had 19 turnovers.
“That’s a tribute to our defense,” Bassett said. “We’re only allowing about 34 points a game.”
For the second time in two weeks, Miami (6-7) now will have a Tuesday off, but they will face a busy weekend: the Northeastern A&M High School Basketball Tournament tips off Thursday.
The Lady Wardogs have been paired with St. Louis Christian Academy in a 6 p.m. Girls’ Gold game at the MAC. Grove will open with Guthrie at the MAC at 4:30 p.m.
“Grove just came in here and stuck it to us,” Busby said. “They were ready to play. We didn’t fight very hard on defense, and on offense, we waited around for somebody else to do something.”
The Lady Wardogs trailed from the outset, falling behind 4-0 in the opening two minutes.
A bucket in the paint by Alyssa Hammons made it 7-4 with 2:39 left in the opening frame, but the Lady Ridgerunners went on an 11-0 tear to take charge.
Miami picked up the pace in the second quarter, but managed only one field goal over the final 5:25 of the half to fall behind 25-9 at intermission.
“We had cut it to 20-9 in the second quarter and really picked it up on defense, then for the next three minutes of the half, we didn’t do anything,” Busby said.
The visitors scored the first nine points of the third quarter to turn the game into a rout.
The Lady Ridgerunners improved to 10-4 and haven’t lost to Miami since a 40-34 loss on Feb. 16, 2009.
