Lady Jackets’ comeback bid falls short against Oilerettes

Taylor Young expected a tough game.

She wanted a different result.

Kingfisher tipped off its basketball season Tuesday night in Merritt and found itself on the wrong end of a 59-50 final score.

“They’re good and they’re very experienced,” said Young of the Oilerettes. “But we didn’t play very well. Every area they had a strength, we had a weakness.”

Merritt won the 2024 Class 2A state championship and was a state quarterfi nalist a year ago. The Oilerettes, like Kingfisher, will be in the Bertha Frank Teague Mid-America Classic at the end of this month.

KHS has three starters and the first player off the bench returning from last year’s 4A quarterfinal team, but lost All-State player Reagan Snider to graduation and had a few other key contributors opting to not play this year.

Kingfisher’s depth this season was tested when both Abbie Myers and Ela Hartman dipped their toes into foul trouble in the first half.

“I didn’t have them sitting on the bench with foul trouble most of the first half on my BINGO card,” Young said.

Myers got two fouls in the first quarter while Hartman picked up three in the second.

Still, KHS hung in there and Reese Roof’s 3-pointer at the end of the first quarter put KHS up 9-8.

Merritt began to find its rhythm in the second quarter, outscoring the Lady Jackets 17-11 for a five-point halftime lead.

That lead was cut when Roof opened the second half with her third of four 3-pointers in the game.

But that’s when the Oilerettes began to take over.

Merritt outscored KHS 22-8 the rest of the quarter. Its lead grew to as many as 17 points.

KHS struggled to maintain 5-foot-9 junior Allie Britton and 5-10 senior Ainsley Partain in the quarter.

The duo combined for 16 points in the frame.

Britton finished the day with 20. Merritt also got 13 points from Marlie Mong and 10 from Adisyn Krueger.

Despite the big deficit, KHS kept scrapping.

It was still a double-digit game with just over 2 minutes to play when Roof nailed her fourth trey to make it 55-47.

Some 20 seconds later, Hartman’s steal and layup pulled KHS within 55-49.

Mattie Slezickey forced another turnover, which led to Roof heading to the foul line with 1:19 to play to make it a one possession game.

Roof converted on just 1 of 2 foul shots, but Kingfisher was still within 55-50.

But the scoring ended there as KHS came up empty on its next two possessions. Merritt went 4 of 4 from the foul line over the final 28 seconds to gain more distance on the scoreboard.

The Oilerettes were 14 of 16 from the foul line in the game.

KHS struggled from that area in the first half, making just 3 of 9. The Lady Jackets improved over the final two quarters and were 13 of 20 overall.

Slezickey led Kingfisher with 18 points. She converted two three-point plays and was 5 of 8 from the foul line.

Roof finished her night with 15.

Those two scored 11 of Kingfisher’s 19 points in the fourth quarter.

Hartman scored six while Taitym Walker got five points in her first career start.