TRC regular season races finally decided
The Cashion girls basketball team took a loss on one court, but got a big win of sorts on another one 45 miles west.
The Lady Wildcats saw their regular season come to an end Monday as they were dealt a 54-42 loss to top-ranked Dale, which is also the defending Class 2A state champion.
It was a massive improvement for Cashion, which was throttled 68-22 by Dale in the semifinals of the Cashion County Line Tournament just three weeks prior.
Cashion trailed by just five points at the half, but Dale was able to open up the game with a 24-11 run in the third quarter.
Megan Shafer led the way for Cashion with 17 points.
Jaylee Harp and Reese Williams scored seven points apiece.
The loss gave Cashion a 17-6 overall record entering the playoffs.
Included in that was a 5-1 record in Three Rivers Conference games.
While Cashion was playing Dale (a non-conference foe), Fairview and Watonga were taking part in a conference game against one another at the same time.
A win by Fairview would give the Lady Jackets a 5-1 conference mark as well, including a head-to-head win over Cashion.
However, Watonga pulled off a 3837 victory in overtime.
That pushed Fairview to a 4-2 district mark, matching that of Oklahoma Bible Academy.
Watonga, meanwhile, followed up that win with a 62-42 victory Tuesday at Crescent.
That gave the Lady Eagles a 5-1 conference record to match Cashion.
But Cashion’s 41-31 head-to-head win on Feb. 2 gives the conference regular season championship to the Lady Wildcats.
In Monday’s nightcap in Cashion, the state’s top attraction among boys teams in Oklahoma showed why that’s the case.
Two-time defending champion Dale - the overwhelming favorite to make it three in a row - took down Cashion 80-48.
Cashion concluded its regular season with a 9-14 record.
Dale moved to 23-2. Its only two losses were to Hoover, the defending Class 7A champ in Alabama, and on a buzzer-beater by Class 6A’s Owasso in Oklahoma’s Tournament of Champions.
The Pirates jumped on Cashion early and led 29-10 after a quarter and continued to build on it until leading 75-31 after three quarters.
Dayton Forsythe, who has signed with the University of Oklahoma, scored 14 points in a balanced Dale attack.
His younger brother, Denton Forsythe, scored a team-high 15 points.
Cashion was led by Nathan Nabavi’s eight points. Four Wildcats scored six apiece.
Tri-champs for boys
While the Three Rivers Conference Tournament came down to almost the last game of the season and was eventually sorted out, that wasn’t necessarily the case for the boys.
Like the girls, it did come down to Monday’s showdown between Fairview and Watonga.
A Watonga victory would have given the regular season conference crown to Hennessey, which had a 5-1 record, as did Okarche.
Hennessey won the headto- head matchup between the two on Feb. 1 when it held on for a 64-60 victory.
But it was Fairview that downed Watonga on the road on Monday with a 6144 win.
That ALSO gave Fairview a 5-1 mark.
To complicate the issue? While Hennessey had the head-to-head win over Okarche, the Warriors beat Fairview 76-46 in their head-to-head matchup on Feb. 3.
But five days later, Fairview won the head-to-head with Hennessey, 37-34.
That meant neither team beat the other two which gives the conference tri-champions for the first time in its history.