Preston earns home sweep over Okarche

Too many fouls. Too many turnovers. Too many missed opportunities.

That’s how Okarche coach Haley Mitchel summed up the Lady Warriors’ season-opening loss at Preston last Friday.

Okarche erased a ninepoint deficit entering the fourth quarter to force overtime, but eventually fell 58-54 after the extra session.

“They’re a good team; they’ll probably be topeight in Class 2A,” Mitchel said of Preston. “But we didn’t help ourselves.”

Okarche had just 22 points through three quarters before erupting for 22 fourth-quarter points.

Tyson Endres scored eight and Jadyn Rother five in the quarter as the Lady Warriors were able to push it into overtime.

Rother scored six more there, but eventually fouled out.

She was one of four Lady Warriors to foul out in the game.

Preston’s Adrianne Wilson Wilson and Jadyn Roberts scored six points each in the overtime period and went a combined 8 of 10 from the foul line to lead the Lady Pirates to the win.

Roberts scored 22 to lead all scorers. Wilson added 17.

Rother paced Okarche with 16 points.

Endres added 13 as did Jalie Rother.

Preston led 19-17 at halftime, then held Okarche to one field goal and five points in the third.

The Lady Warriors turned it over 21 times and missed a number of what Mitchel called “shots we shouldn’t miss” throughout the game.

Pirates make early lead stick in 66-53 victory

An early deficit proved to be one Okarche couldn’t dig out of on Friday.

The Warriors tipped off the season with a 66-53 loss at Preston.

“We just didn’t execute like we should have on stuff we worked on, especially early,” said Okarche coach Aaron West. “We gave a few open looks to their good ones.”

A bulk of Preston’s lead was built in the first quarter as the Pirates got out to a 21-13 advantage.

“Outside of that, we played them pretty close overall,” West said. “We’re young and we’ll learn from it while they start four seniors from a team that went to the area finals last year.”

Preston was able to knock down 56 percent of its shots (23 of 41) compared to 33 percent (18 of 54) for Okarche.

Outside of that, the teams were relatively even in 3-pointers, rebounds, points off turnovers and second-chance points.

Jett Mueggenborg led eight different Warriors who scored with 12 points. He also led the team, along with Easton Roby, with six rebounds.

Roby added nine points. Wyatt Pinkerton added 11 points.

The Pirates were led by Jervais Goree’s 21 points. Malachi Ligons added 16 and Tucker Webb 12.