Battle of 4A contenders sees Weatherford put end to Jackets’ epic home win streak in instant classic

For more than seven years, fate was not on the side of Kingfisher High School’s basketball opponents at the All-Purpose Building.

Finally, on Friday night in front of another full and rowdy crowd, fate came crashing down on the Yellowjackets’ epic home win streak.

It came in the form of family as Weatherford junior Nate Reherman appeared seemingly from nowhere and rose to the rafters to block Xavier Ridenour’s driving shot attempt with just a mere seconds left in overtime.

Ridenour’s bucket would have tied the game, but Reherman’s efforts essentially clinched a 51-47 victory for the visiting Eagles.

After two Tate Sage free throws dropped and the final buzzer sounded, Weatherford’s student section stormed the court, a symbolic gesture worthy of the feat their brethren had just completed.

No. 3 Weatherford had not only knocked off the No. 1 team in Class 4A, but it put to an end an unfathomable streak of 80 straight home wins by the Yellowjackets.

“You want it to last forever, but you know it can’t,” said Kingfisher head coach Jared Reese.

Not since Tuttle left town with a 46-43 victory on Jan. 13, 2016, had a team other than KHS had its hand raised in victory on the APB court.

That’s more than seven calendar years.

It included five full seasons that saw regular-season foes, tournament foes and playoff foes all be disposed of.

Bad teams. Good teams. Ranked teams. Great teams.

All had been overwhelmed by Jacket squads that also dominated away from home.

Since that last home loss, Kingfisher has won four state championships, played for another and had yet another derailed by a global pandemic.

They have become the face of Class 4A boys basketball in Oklahoma.

On top of ending the streak, the surging Eagles proved they could conquer a feat unattainable to them - beating KHS - as they’ve turned into a state title contender the last two seasons.

That included a regular season game last year in which the Jackets won on Weatherford’s home court, snapping the Eagles’ 12game win streak. It was also in last year’s area championship game in which Kingfisher ran Weatherford off the Stride Center court.

And it was just two weeks prior when - just 24 hours after losing senior leader Maddox Mecklenburg to a season-ending knee injury - the short-handed Yellowjackets once again manhandled the Eagles, ending their 16-game win streak to start the season.

At times, it appeared this matchup would extend the streak to 81.

The Jackets led by as many as 12 in the first half and were up 10 at the break.

Drake Friesen nailed a 3-pointer early in the third quarter to push the Jackets’ advantage to 13.

The Eagles clawed back within six before Caden Kitchens scored at the buzzer to give the Jackets a 36-28 advantage. It was Kingfisher’s third buzzer beater of the game as Jax Sternberger knocked in shots to end both the first and second quarters.

But shots weren’t knocked down in the fourth.

The Jackets tried to spread out the Eagle defense to begin the fourth.

By the mid-point of the fourth, the lead was down to two.

When the electric C.J. Nickson scored a threepoint play with 3:11 left in regulation, it had turned into a one-point deficit.

Nickson scored again at 1:48 to cap an 11-0 run by the visitors to begin the fourth quarter.

Not until Xavier Ridenour’s drive and bucket with 1:04 to play did the Jackets manage a point in the final quarter.

“This game went basically the same as the one before,” said Reese. “We just had several empty possessions and weren’t able to finish the fourth quarter like we have so many times.”

Yet the Jackets still had their chances.

The Ridenour bucket pulled the Jackets within one and the deficit was extended to three points when Ethan Sage made two charity shots with 32 seconds remaining.

Ridenour countered with his own makes from the foul line 12 seconds later to make it 41-40 Weatherford.

The Jackets had hope when Reherman missed the front end of a one-and-one with just under 15 seconds remaining.

The hope was seemingly dashed when Friesen missed a go-ahead 3-pointer and Reherman grabbed the rebound, but the latter was called for a push-off, giving Kingfisher the ball back under its own basket with 1.2 seconds remaining.

The drama had just begun.

After a timeout, the Jackets ran a play that eventually freed Ridenour as he curled toward the bucket, but Cash Slezickey had already called a timeout to prevent a poten-tial five-second call.

“It was there, but that was the only look on the play or he was supposed to call a timeout and it was close,” Reese said.

Nickson knocked the next inbounds pass right back out of bounds, costing the Jackets half of their time and pushing them further away from the bucket.

Still, Slezickey found Kitchens underneath on their final inbounds play and Kitchens was fouled by Ethan Sage while trying to get off the shot as time expired.

That sent Kitchens to the line with no time on the clock, meaning nobody was standing in the lane.

All eyes were on Kitchens as he had two shots and a chance to win the game as his team still trailed by one. And he missed the first.

However, Kitchens calmly sank the second one, forcing the overtime.

With 45 seconds left in the extra frame, Jackson Smith put the Eagles up 47--45 with a free throw.

Kingfisher ran a play for Ridenour, who got off an open look for 3.

It went halfway down before popping back out.

“It was the look we wanted and a good shot,” Reese said. “We thought it was going in.”

Instead, Tate Sage was fouled and made both free throws for a 49-45 Eagle advantage.

Ridenour stormed the length of the floor and made it a two-point game with 18.6 seconds left.

The Eagles’ Smith was sent back to the line five seconds later.

He missed both.

KHS was out of timeouts, but the game plan was for Ridenour to continue to attack.

He did just that and got past Reherman outside of the 3-point line, stepped around Smith in the lane and went up on the right side of the rim.

As the Jacket faithful were about to erupt, the left hand of Reherman - a first cousin to Friesen and both the grandsons of Kingfi sher’s John and Marsha Reherman - came soaring above the rim and deflected the shot into Tate Sage’s hands.

Game over as the Jackets had to quickly foul Sage, who made both of his shots. “Weatherford is an extremely talented and athletic team and they had probably more than 10 plays - including that block - that we’re just unable to make,” Reese said.

“So we have to do all the little things right at a much higher rate and we did that for three quarters. We just didn’t finish.”

Reherman had all eight of his points in the second half and overtime.

Ethan Sage scored 12 while Tate Sage also had eight points.

But it was Nickson who stole the show.

The sophomore scored 24 in the teams’ first showdown and just days after started garnering football offers from the likes of OU, OSU, Texas Tech and Baylor.

The Jackets limited him to eight points in the first half this time around and he had 10 through three quarters.

But Nickson scored nine of Weatherford’s 13 points in the fourth quarter and then made the go-ahead 3-pointer in overtime after Kitchens had given the Jackets a brief 45-43 advantage.

He ended his night with 22 points and a game-high seven rebounds.

“He was ridiculously good,” Reese said.

The Eagles out-rebounded KHS 25-13 and had 10 on the offensive end.

Kitchens scored 17 to pace the Jackets, who also lost a conference game for the first time since that home defeat to Tuttle seven- plus years ago.

Ridenour scored 14 while Sternberger notched 10 points.

Those two combined for three of Kingfisher’s four 3-pointers in the first quarter as they staked a 17-9 lead.

However, Friesen’s trey early in the third was the only other one for KHS for the rest of the night.

Weatherford backed up Friday’s monumental win with a 61-46 victory at home Saturday against No. 6 Newcastle. The Eagles are now 18-1 and 9-0 in the Western Conference.

The Jackets saw their record drop to 16-3 and 8-1.