Girls take fourth in Skiatook
By Brody Feldmann
Staff Writer
SKIATOOK- The No.14 Mustang girls basketball team finds themselves at the .500 mark for the season after taking fourth at the Skiatook Invitational.
On Thursday in the first round the Broncos defeated No. 15 Bartlesville 46-43 in overtime. The Broncos were led by Abby Niehues who finished with 14 points and 12 rebounds.
“Bartlesville is really big I just thought they (Niehues and Haywood) were real patient and our guards did a good job of getting them the ball on time. They gave them some easy opportunities and they stepped up and made big strong moves,” head coach Kevin Korstjens said.
Cur-Tiera Haywood finished with nine points and eight rebounds, Ellise Foreman had six points and two rebounds while Mia Brown finished with four points, five rebounds and five assists.
After the first round the weather hit and pushed the tournament back to be continued on Saturday and Monday.
“It should have worked out in our favor in my opinion because you aren’t playing back-to-back. There was no reason not to be fresh or not to have that energy,” Korstjens said. “They got an extra day out of school so they should have been excited about that let alone.”
The Broncos faced up with the 4A No. 1 Fort Gibson team on Saturday in the semifinals which Fort Gibson won 52-45. Niehues led the team again with 14 points and seven rebounds.
“The girls played hard against a really good team. I thought we need to be a little more aggressive getting to the rim and especially on the offensive glass. We only finished with five offensive rebounds and we average over 13 a game,” Korstjens said.
Foreman finished the game with 13 points, six rebounds and two assists and Brown and Haywood both contributed nine points each.
On Monday Mustang took the two hour bus ride back up to Skiatook after coming home on Saturday to face No. 10 Owasso in the consolation finals. Owasso defeated the Broncos 46-42 giving the Broncos a fourth place finish.
“I felt pretty good about Thursday and Saturday but I didn’t feel like we competed to the level we needed to last night,” Korstjens said. “We weren’t as aggressive as we should have been. We lacked the energy that we needed to steal one from Owasso which I felt like we had a great opportunity to do.”
Mustang finally hosted their first home game last night against No. 9 Norman but, the results came in after the paper was sent to press. The Broncos will host Southmoore on Friday at 6:00 P.M.
“It’ll be nice to finally play at home but like you said we don’t have any nights off. They are playing really good ball right now,” Korstjens said.
