Edlam: A girls game you won't forget...
By Robert Przybylo
BPrzybylo@opubco.com
I still contend the best girls high school basketball game I’ve ever seen was when Millwood defeated Sequoyah-Tahlequah in the championship two years ago.
But now I know what is the best regular season game I’ve ever seen. If you weren’t there, well, let’s just say you missed an epic between Memorial and Santa Fe.
Santa Fe 64, Memorial 58 – OT (Girls)
I can’t wait to upload the video of Arielle Cooper’s 3-pointer that sends this game into overtime. The atmosphere is beyond crazy.
Big classes take a lot of heat about not having the passion the smaller classes have for basketball. All you need to know is what happened in that gym Tuesday.
Memorial led 56-53 when Cooper banked home the 3. Courtney Walker was the first option, but they couldn’t get it to her, so Cooper got to play hero.
Even before then, it was a great game between two solid teams, but that just put it in a whole different place.
In OT, Memorial was a little deflated and Santa Fe was obviously a little excited, and that’s your recipe for an 8-2 edge for the Wolves in the extra session.
As has become the norm for Santa Fe, the Wolves got off to a horrible start and Memorial led 19-7 early in the second quarter.
But here come the Wolves. And early in the third quarter, it was now 30-25 ESF.
And now here comes Alie Decker. The Memorial sophomore scores the team’s next 10 points and Memorial takes a 40-37 lead into the fourth.
Memorial stretches the lead to 47-38 when Walker shows why she might already be the best player in the state (yeah, I said it).
She drains one three, dives on the ground for a loose ball and rolls it to a teammate before connecting on another trifecta (that I call, by the way).
After that, it was just a game of ‘can you top this?’ Jimi Blagowsky came up big at the FT line for the Wolves and finished with 20 points.
Santa Fe stopped Decker after her 10-point explosion but had no answer for Paige Locke, who came up with big shot after big shot down the stretch.
