Put the past behind you

When Raegan Snider sat down Friday night, she was already putting the game behind her.

“I hit the bench in the fourth quarter and I was already turning the page to the next game,” said the lone senior on the Kingfisher High School girls basketball team.

“I knew we had another shot and I knew good teams turn the page and respond well.”

The Lady Jackets did, in fact, respond well.

After holding off a late rally, Kingfisher earned its spot in the Class 4A state tournament with a 45-39 victory over No. 14 Oologah on Saturday at the Stroud 66 Coliseum.

The win in the area consolation championship game secured Kingfisher’s 28th trip to the state tournament and third time in the last four years.

“Every year with coach (Taylor) Young and Kingfi sher girls basketball, that’s the standard,” said Snider. “If you don’t make it, it’s like that’s an unsuccessful year.”

Kingfisher didn’t make it a season ago, the first time in Young’s tenure and Snider’s career.

The Lady Jackets reached the same “win or go home” situation, but lost to Tuttle.

Unlike the last three years, however, Kingfisher wasn’t navigating through the consolation bracket to get there. Instead, the Lady Jackets won a regional for the first time under Young and squared off in Friday’s area championship game against No. 3 Fort Gibson.

The Lady Jackets took their lumps and were out of contention early in the second half of the 61-34 loss.

“All season after a loss, we’ve responded well,” Snider said.

KHS hasn’t lost consecutive games all season.

In the locker room after the loss, Young told the team she was “excited” to see how they’d respond and knew a dampened spirit served no good since the coaching staff had to prepare them to play the next day.

“Having them understand that, yes, this might hurt, and, yes, you might be frustrated you got beat, but you’ve got to take that one and move on to the next day because you’ve got another day to play basketball and punch your ticket,” Young said.

“So the world wasn’t ending even though it may have felt like it with how competitive they are.”

Oologah was coming off of double-digit wins over Elk City (53-43) and Weatherford (49-30), two teams that have wins over Kingfisher this year, the previous two days.

“We wanted to try to get into their legs early knowing this was their third game in three days,” Young said. “Just start out jumping into our press when we could and try to wear them out.

“Even if you didn’t see it affect them in the first half, we knew eventually it was going to take its toll.”

Kingfisher closed the first quarter strong in building a 16-11 lead.

Abbie Myers put up seven points and Reese Roof five in the frame.

While the defense stayed solid in the second quarter, the Lady Jackets’ offense stalled and the lead was “only” six, but felt it could have been more.

“We missed a few easy shots, missed some rebounds,” Snider admitted. “Coming in, we definitely felt we could have been up by more.”

Snider didn’t have a field goal in that first half, but produced three buckets in the third quarter, including a three-point play.

The Lady Jackets took a nine-point lead into the fourth quarter.

A couple minutes into the fourth, the game started to unravel for KHS.

Allie Charloe and Kaile Seaba both made 3-pointers and, after a Kingfisher turnover, Ashtyn Warford’s layup made it a 33-32 game.

Kingfisher’s comfortable margin had disappeared.

“I think what helped is we’ve worked on that in practice a bunch. Obviously the situation is different when you get out here and get with a crowd and their team’s fans are getting into it,” Young said.

“It’s reminding them to go back to what we’ve been doing.”

It also didn’t help that Seaba, the team’s 5-11 ju- nior post who surpassed 1,000 career points during the game, fouled out with 4:25 to play.

She had 19 of her team’s 32 points.

Kingfisher got better with the ball and then was excellent at the foul line.

Snider went 8 for 8 in the fourth quarter and Mattie Slezickey made her two lone offerings.

Kingfisher’s lead grew back to seven points with under 25 seconds to go.

Macey Calico gave her team one last bit of hope with 14 seconds to go when she made the Lady Mustangs’ sixth trey of the game and third of the fourth quarter.

But after an Oologah timeout, freshman Ela Hartman launched a football throw to a wide open Adlee Friesen.

After the slightest bit of hesitation, Friesen dribbled down and made the layup, giving Kingfisher its sixpoint lead again.

That sealed the win. After seeing the lead cut to a single point, Kingfisher outscored Oologah 12-7 down the stretch.

“We had some younger kids out there who haven’t been in that situation before in this type of moment,” said Young.

“So it was nice to see them respond in a good way.”

Added Snider: “This season, we’ve had a bunch of tough, tough, tough weeks and I feel like that showed tonight.

“We were the tougher team.”

Kingfisher helped itself at the free throw line, making all but two of its 22 attempts.

Snider was 14 of 15 and was able to dribble out the last few seconds before launching the ball into the rafters at the final buzzer.

She led all scorers with 20 points.

“I’m the only senior on the team and I just knew that I was not ending my season before I got to the Big House,” Snider said.

Myers finished her night with 11 points while Slezickey and Roof had five apiece.

And now, KHS makes its most recent trip to the famed State Fair Arena.

The 60th year of state basketball at “The Big House” will be the last as the new arena currently under construction will be ready for use in 2026.

The current structure will be demolished.

“It’s special in a bunch of ways,” Young said of the old arena. “The tradition of The Big House and that tradition going away after this year, it’s just not going to be the same.”

Young won state as a player in State Fair Arena and has coached KHS in its two most recent trips. She’ll get to share this experience with her daughter, Kamdyn, who was born during last basketball season.

“It’s special because now my daughter gets to experience that and will get to walk around on that floor and be in there for at least one game that I’m getting to coach in,” Young said.

And Snider gets at least one more night on the state’s biggest stage.

“It’s surreal. It’s the sole goal this season. We want to go win a gold ball, but you have to get there first,” she said. “So getting there is such a relief and now you just get to go play in the best environment in the world in my opinion.”