Jan. 27—The No. 11 Broken Bow Lady Savages would have beat just about any opponent shooting 50% from the field and making 11 three-point shots.
That performance just so happened to come against the McAlester Lady Buffaloes (2-11) who snapped their two-game win streak with a 75-42 loss Monday night.
Despite the defeat, sophomore Kambree Zummer tied her career-high point total with 21 to go along with three rebounds while sophomore Rylan Lesnau and senior Beaudee Nystrom also reached double-figures.
Basketball is often referred to as a game of runs and that statement perfectly encapsulated the first quarter of action between McAlester and Broken Bow.
After Zummer first recorded a career-high 21 points in Saturday’s win over Noble, she followed that up with an easy layup to start the game. However, a 7-0 scoring run by the Lady Savages (14-4) on the back of junior Katie Rogers’ five straight points, put the Lady Buffaloes in a dangerous spot early.
Zummer did make McAlester’s first two triples late in the first period to help the Lady Buffaloes make up some ground and against their first ranked opponent, they only found themselves trailing 18-13 after quarter one.
Broken Bow’s bench gave the Lady Savages a big spark in the second quarter as senior Haylie Brantley made her presence felt from the perimeter. She knocked down two three point shots to give Broken Bow its largest lead of the game at 14 points, forcing a McAlester timeout.
With just under four minutes left in the first half, Zummer did answer with a triple of her own, putting her well within double figures already, but two costly turnovers in the second period’s final seconds allowed the Lady Savages to get to the free throw line and get easy layups.
Sophomore Tyson Woolsey added the icing on the cake with a steal and layup nearly at the buzzer and Broken Bow led 39-23 at halftime.
Back-to-back-to-back triples highlighted a dominant first four minutes of the third period for the Lady Savages as senior Jaxie Glasson came off the bench and lit things up from the corner. She and Rogers were the only players to score in the period until Nystrom finally got things going for the Lady Buffaloes from the post, making three jump shots from the free throw line.
McAlester needed an answer offensively in the final two minutes of the quarter and it didn’t help that the team had only scored nine points to that point. After a brief timeout, sophomore Jaylen Cauthron, who had a quiet first half knocked down a deep three, which gave Broken Bow a commanding 61-32 lead.
With the Lady Savages’ reserve players getting some playing time for much of the fourth quarter, buckets weren’t quite as plentiful. Lesnau and Nystrom tried to keep the Lady Buffaloes competitive, but a made triple by sophomore Genesis Smith in the final minute of the game capped off an impressive night from distance for Broken Bow as the team won 75-42.
McAlester will return home for a rivalry game against No. 20 Ada (10-6) tomorrow night at 6 p.m.
