Staying put at the right time

Walker sparks Lady Jackets’ 38-33 win

Kingfisher solidified its spot in the top-eight of the Class 4A rankings while grabbing a huge road win.

The Lady Jackets built a 10-point lead in the third quarter, then held on for a 38-33 at No. 12 Anadarko on Friday night.

KHS entered ranked sixth in 4A in its last game before the rankings that will be used for the playoff assignments that will be released later this week.

“I thought that was a great win for us for many reasons,” said KHS head coach Taylor Young. “I wanted to see how we were going to respond after dropping a tough loss to El Reno on Tuesday and Anadarko is a tough place to play,” she said.

“Both games were very similar to the type of playoff environment that we will see coming up within the next few weeks.”

The Lady Jackets won’t know until Friday what that playoff road will look like, but they’ll be one of the two highest-ranked teams in their area as they remained at No. 6 this week.

The OSSAA assigns to top-eight teams to each of the four areas.

The Lady Jackets may not have dropped out with a loss to Anadarko, but didn’t tempt fate.

The teams were tied 17-17 at halftime, but KHS opened the third quarter with a 12-2 run.

Peyton Walker’s conventional three-point play with 2:49 left in the quarter gave KHS a 29-19 lead.

“I was pleased to see that we kept battling and kept competing,” Young said. “Our adjustments offensively and defensively after halftime were big.”

All but two of Anadarko’s points in the first half came off of 3-pointers.The Warriors had just two treys in the second half.

Walker’s play followed a three-point play by Rayland Garner as well as a fivepoint spurt from Allison Green.

However, KHS managed just two more field goals the rest of the game and Anadarko was able to pull within two in the last minute.

The Lady Jackets saw that go back to five as Emily Myers and Green combined to go 3 of 4 from the foul line in a nine-second stretch.

Those free shots paired with Anadarko’s inability to answer on the other end allowed KHS to dribble out the win.

Green scored 13 for KHS, 10 of which came in the second half.

Garner scored nine.

Walker, though, was Kingfisher’s spark plug.

The sophomore scored 13 points, but was also a thorn in Anadarko point guard Leyla Saldana’s side.

Saldana had just two points and four turnovers.

Anadarko never scored consistently and turned it over 17 times.

Walker added two rebounds, two assists, two steals and another four deflections.

“Defensively she was locked in all night,” Young said. “Her steal towards the end of the game was what helped seal that win for us. She was also running the offense but taking what the defense was giving her and was able to knock down shots.”

Kingfisher was 13-3 after the win.

Anadarko fell to 11-5.