Garber ends Okarche’s roller coaster season in area

A season that experienced a lifetime’s worth of emotion came to a tearful end Friday.

Garber used a dominant third quarter to take a lead, then held onto it in the fourth for a 50-43 victory against Okarche in a Class A girls area consolation semifinal.

Okarche, which had won three straight elimination games going into the contest in Woodward, saw its season come to an end with a 20-11 record and two wins shy of returning to the state tournament for a third straight season.

It was a season that saw one of its senior leaders go down with a knee injury, only to come back and lead the team down the home stretch of the season.

It was also one that saw the team finish with an entirely different coaching staff than it had to start the season.

Haley Mitchel and her assistants Kaylene Ullom and Skye Tilley resigned eight games into the season.

In her resignation letter, Mitchel referenced threats that “have been made to destroy the reputation and lives of my family, coaching staff and myself.”

In stepped Larry Black, the program’s former coach who hadn’t been on the sideline for a game since the 2001 Class A semifinals.

He was soon joined by Superintendent Josh Sumrall, who had two decades of coaching experience before coming to Okarche in 2020.

The Lady Warriors lost their final game before the holiday break and then their second game after it, the latter of which was to Fairview in the Three Rivers Conference Tournament opener.

In between those two losses, Black and Sumrall went to work implementing a complete overhaul with the team.

“The girls trusted Coach Black and I when we put in a whole new system at Christmas break and throughout the second half of the season,” said Sumrall. “Every coach is different and has different philosophies about the game and ways they go about practices, game preparation, in-game adjustments and game management.

“I want to stress that that takes nothing away from the system they were running before we took over. Coach Black and I each have several years of basketball coaching experience and we just instilled our philosophy and what we thought might work and what we thought was best for the situation.”

The results started showing on the floor and the scoreboard.

Okarche won its final two games of the tournament to claim a consolation championship and then beat Thomas the Tuesday after.

After that, the Lady Warriors took Class A’s eighthranked Oklahoma Bible Academy to the wire in a 34-30 loss on the road.

Then came a string of eight straight wins, which included the Coyle Tournament championship.

“The girls reacted tremendously and bought into the things we put in. The credit goes to the girls for playing hard and doing what they were asked to do,” Sumrall said.

Okarche ran into OBA to start the playoff regional, led most of the way, but eventually fell 44-39.

Then came three straight wins with the season on the line.

Against Garber, the Lady Warriors led 26-21 at halftime.

Three different Lady Warriors combined for five 3-pointers in the half, two each by Katie Parham and Scout Payne.

But the third quarter swung the game in Garber’s favor.

While Okarche managed just one field goal, Garber’s Leila Washington resumed a hot streak she had in the first quarter.

The Lady Wolverine opened the game with three treys in that opening period. She then scored nine points in Garber’s 15-2 run in the third.

She finished with 25 points on the night.

Okarche couldn’t catch up in the fourth.

Payne and Jadyn Rother both made 3-pointers, but the Lady Warriors only closed the gap by three points.

Rother led Okarche in her final game with 14 points. The senior injured her knee early in the season, then came back to lead the team in scoring.

Payne scored 13 and Parham 10 for Okarche.

“The playoff run that we made was really impressive,” Sumrall said.

“The girls played hard, gave it their all and caused a lot of teams problems deep into the playoffs. We were a couple of tough bounces away from a shot at the state tournament.”

For Sumrall and Black, the latter half of the season was an opportunity for both to do something they love.

“Personally, it was fun getting back on the bench, scouting, late-night film watching and, again, watching the girls get better,” Sumrall said.

“I really enjoyed getting back on the floor and teaching the game of basketball again. Watching the girls grow, develop and get better at the offensive and defensive changes that we made was probably the most enjoyable.”

Now he and Black hang up their whistles one more time as Sumrall resumes the search for the program’s next coach.

In the interim and beyond, he said he’ll cherish the time he had with the team.

“I appreciate them trusting us and giving their all to the program,” he said.