Lady Jackets thump Clinton in 4A district

Winning a district hasn’t been a problem of late for the Kingfisher girls basketball team.

The regional? That’s another issue.

The Lady Jackets turn their attention to the latter this week after dominating Clinton 61-22 on the road Saturday in a Class 4A district championship game.

KHS dominated early and continued to build on its lead against the Lady Reds while improving to 19-5.

Mannford awaits the Lady Jackets in the regional semifinal. The two will square off at the APB at 6 p.m. Thursday.

That contest has been a bit of a speed bump for KHS during coach Taylor Young’s previous three years.

Kingfisher had a 14game win streak snapped last year in losing 35-23 to Plainview to open a regional.

Two years prior to that, Woodward stunned the Lady Jackets to open a regional.

And even when KHS was able to get past that first round game - in 2023 - the Lady Jackets were knocked off by Inola in the regional championship.

The good news is the Lady Jackets still made runs to the state tournament in 2022 and 2023 and fell just one game shy a year ago.

Mannford comes to town with a 14-8 record. It beat Cushing 38-36 on Friday in its district championship game. It was the third time the two teams had met with Mannford previously winning by 21 and 18 points.

Kingfisher beat Cushing by 53 points when they met in January.

Cushing has just two wins on the season and Clinton entered Saturday with only four.

The Lady Jackets weren’t intent on letting the Lady Reds hang around as they jumped to a 22-3 lead after a quarter.

Reagan Snider and Abbie Myers combined for 13 points in the quarter while Mattie Slezickey, Ela Hartman and Reese Roof each made a 3-pointer.

That was a positive sign of things to come for the Lady Jackets.

They ended the day 8 of 18 from long range.

Slezickey made another in the second and Maya Haney added one in the third quarter.

But Roof ended up 4 of 8 from long range as part of her 14 points.

She also led the team with four steals. The Lady Jackets had 13 steals overall and forced 24 turnovers.

Snider led the team with 15 points. She had 13 at the half when KHS led 36-10.

Haney scored seven while Slezickey finished with six points and five assists.

Myers also scored six and joined Adlee Friesen in leading the team with seven rebounds each.