By CHUCK LARSEN
Sports Editor
MIDWEST CITY – Chickasha’s girls returned to the basketball floor for a Thursday make-up game at top-ranked Carl Albert and came home with a 61-23 loss.
Tim Price’s Lady Titans took over the No. 1 spot in the polls this week after knocking off Harrah, 31-29, on the road just before the weather went south. They had no problem, though, putting up big numbers back on their home floor against the over-matched Chicks.
Lady Chick coach Matt Layman said before the game that all he wanted was for his kids to compete hard for the entire 32 minutes, regardless of the score. It was a tough chore after getting off to a rough start.
Chickasha had nine turnovers four minutes in and was already down 21-0 when sophomore center Sierra Hamilton scored on a putback with 2:34 left in the first quarter.
By then, Price had called off the press and was already going to his bench, but after scoring 10 points in the final minutes, Chickasha managed only two buckets in the second quarter and was in a 39-14 hole by halftime.
With 5:48 showing in the third quarter, CA’s Desiree Bradley buried a three from the elbow for a 44-14 lead and her 1,000th career point. The game was stopped while the silky-smooth 6-1 guard, who will be playing college ball at USC next year, was presented with the game ball and posed for some pictures.
Senior Diamon Heath hit a little eight-footer with 1:41 left in the third for the Chicks’ only points of the quarter and her only points of the game and Carl Albert’s bench did mop-up duties to finish it.
Layman got the effort he wanted, but only in spurts. Hamilton led with eight points and eleven rebounds, playing hard every minute she was on the floor, but the rest of the team was pretty inconsistent.
“No matter what happened or what the score was, we wanted to sustain a certain level of effort,” the coach said later, “but we let our frustration and their pressure get to us. It’s all a part of learning how to play the game and growing up.”
He was pleased with his young backup post player, who saw a lot of minutes.
“Sierra gave a great effort and sustained a good, high level all night. She’s aggressive with the ball, she’s got good footwork and post moves and she knows how to use her body on defense. I really liked her effort. She’s got a bright future.”
Bradley finished with 16 points and freshman guard Gioya Carter and senior post Kylie Mayes each had 13 in limited action. Ten Titans got in the book as their reserves got a lot of playing time.
Freshman guard Haylee Harris had four points for Chickasha and Gab Atwell had three.
“They have a way to make you look really bad, maybe worse than you really are,” Layman said. “We’ll just put this behind us.”
