The Muldrow High School basketball teams had just one night of competition last week as they split their NOAA Conference road games Friday night against Sallisaw on its homecoming at Paul Post Field House.
The Lady Bulldogs capped the night with a 34-12 win over the Lady Diamonds to get the Muldrow victory on the night.
However, a last-second shot doomed the ’Dogs as they lost 58-57 to the Back Diamonds.
In the girls’ game, the Lady Bulldogs (135 overall, 5-2 in NOAA Conference play) trailed 4-2 in the first quarter, but from a free throw by Muldrow’s Cailey Grinstead with 0.7 seconds left in the opening period Muldrow went on a 14-0 run as Kennedi “Kiki” Wight’s 3-point basket with 3:06 left before halftime gave Muldrow a 16-4 lead. However, the Lady Diamonds ended the first half with a 6-0 run to cut Muldrow’s lead to 16-10 at halftime.
However, the Lady Diamonds ended the first half with a 6-0 run, capped by Hannah Palmer’s free throw with 38 seconds remaining in the first half, to cut the Sallisaw deficit to 16-10 at halftime.
Both teams struggled to score in the third period as the only points came on a Wight basket with 3:52 left in the quarter to put Muldrow ahead 18-10.
In the final period, the Lady Bulldogs almost scored as many points (16) as they did the first three quarters (18).
However, while it took four quarters before the Muldrow offense started to click, the Muldrow defense sparkled all four periods. In fact, in the second half, the only points Sallisaw scored came from the free-throw line as Sydney Weedon and Kayli Macon each hit a charity toss to keep the Lady Diamonds from going the entire second half with a goose egg on the scoreboard.
“Until our offense catches up with our defense, we’re going to have to continue to play defense,” Muldrow girls coach Jana Armer said. “We absolutely are struggling scoring, but our defense has been solid for us all year long. We finally found something that worked for us (offensively in the fourth quarter) and got us a little bit of separation for us, but we’re going to hang our hats on our defense — and will for the rest of the year. When you have a group of seniors who know and understand that side (defense) and know how important that is in the grand scheme of things, that’s big I think.”
For the game, Claire Tabor scored a gamehigh 11 points and Wight added 10 points to lead Muldrow, followed by Grinstead with seven points and London Hardin, Katelynn Moore and Kayla Ellingberg with two points apiece.
In the boys’ game, after Muldrow’s Teaguen Collins hit a pair of three throws with 15 seconds left in the game to give the Bulldogs (9-9, 4-3) a 57-56 lead, the Black Diamonds came down and got the game-winning shot by Wes Rodriguez with five seconds remaining to play to give Sallisaw a 58-57 lead.
The ’Dogs had one last desperation shot from just inside the midcourt line, but the shot drew iron and clanked off as the buzzer sounded.
The Bulldogs had as much as a 15-point lead in the second quarter at 27-12 after Deshawn Wilson’s 3-point basket with 3:10 left in the first half. However, the Black Diamonds ended the first half with a 13-3 run to cut Muldrow’s lead to 30-25 at halftime.
From there, Sallisaw slowly regained the lead for the first time at 31-30 with 5:20 left in the third quarter on a basket by Cooper Jackson. For the rest of the game, there were five lead changes and four ties, with Rodriguez’s game-winner providing the fifth lead change over the final 13:20 of game time.
Muldrow boys coach Terry Collins believed that the defensive pressure applied by the Black Diamonds was the key factor as to why the ’Dogs could not hold on for the road win and complete an NOAA season sweep of Sallisaw “They applied some pressure,” Collins said. “Sometimes we handle it, and sometimes we don’t. We struggled (Friday night) handling the pressure and making plays like we need to make. Hats off to Sallisaw.”
In defeat, Collins scored 19 points and Parker Sevenstar added 16 points to lead Muldrow, followed by Kashan Bukhari with eight points, Wilson with six points, Jesse Kilinc with five points and Hayden Bullock with three points.
