Sandite Basketball: Girls on a roll, boys not so much

This story was originally written for the Sand Springs Leader.

If this week’s scoreboard has been any indication of the weeks to come, the Sand Springs girls’ basketball team should be poised to make a deep playoff run.

The 6A-East No. 2 Sandites (19-3) never trailed once in their three games, rolling to dominant wins against No. 11 Owasso, No. 6 Broken Arrow, and No. 14 Bartlesville to wrap up the regular season.

“I think we’re playing better basketball,” head coach Josh Berry said after a 63-34 senior night win against the Bruins (4-18).

“I think we’ve still got a lot of things to clean up before the playoffs, but I like the direction that we’re going.”

The Sandites scored 23 points in a row in the first half and led 36-11 by halftime. The second string played most of the second half, and 10 different Sandites made their way into the scorebook.

“I like the way that everybody’s stepping up and playing different parts,” said Berry. “If we can do that, where we get different scoring, different rebounding, different assists from different people, then I think we’ve got a good chance.”

Sophomore Taiona Morris led the team for the first time this season with a career-high 16 points.

“She’s going to be special,” said Berry. “I think she gets more and more confidence every time we go out there.”

Eight Sandites combined for 17 steals in a stifling defensive effort led by Sakauri Wilson with 5 and Morris with 4. Layne Kirkendoll added 4 blocks.

“I thought we just needed to speed it up a little bit,” said Berry. “They did a good job of rotating and being there for the steals. We just caught them on that.”

Journey Armstead scored 22 points in a Monday night rout of Owasso (10-13), followed by Hailey Jackson with 19 points and 10 rebounds for her third double-double of the season, and Wilson with 11 points.

On Tuesday the Sandites bullied Broken Arrow 53-20, giving up only four points in each of the first three quarters while holding the Tigers (13-9) to their lowest scoring output since 2011.

Armstead and Jackson scored 13 points apiece in that game.

The Lady Sandites finished the season second in the Frontier Valley Conference, their best performance since winning the league in 2019.

The Sandites will return to action Thursday at 8:00 p.m. when they host No. 15 Muskogee (2-13) in the first game of the Regional tournament. 

The Sandites previously beat Muskogee 56-43, but Berry isn’t going to let his team overlook the Roughers.

“One game at a time,” said Berry. “It’s Muskogee. That’s the only thing we think about from here on out. We just take them one game at a time and don’t take anybody lightly.”

Boys Basketball

The No. 14 Sandites (5-17) are on a seven-game losing streak after falling 68-31 to Owasso, 55-37 to Broken Arrow, and 87-77 to Bartlesville.

Despite the loss, the Sandites actually played one of their best games of the season on Senior Night. Four Sandites scored double digits and three had double-doubles in their highest scoring output of the year.

Jason Clark and Ethan Oakley led the Sandites with 19 points apiece, and Oakley added 11 rebounds in his season-best performance. Cale Askew and JD Dickson both scored 14 points with 11 rebounds apiece. Askew’s performance was also a career best.

The boys will travel to No. 3 Putnam City West (17-5) Friday at 8:00 p.m. in the Regional playoffs.