West Metro POW: Dominique Raney, Putnam City

This time of year, anyone who is still playing basketball deserves some recognition, and that includes the teams that were still alive on Saturday morning. So a salute to all of them, but let’s take a moment to honor some of the individuals of those teams in the West Metro.

Your Player of the Week is Putnam City’s Dominique Raney, who led the Pirates to the one win they’ve been trying all season to get — no, not the win that clinched a state tournament bid, the win over rival Putnam City West.

Raney had 19 points and was a big part of the 15-2 second-quarter run by the Pirates that really opened up the game.

It’s been a rough season at times for Raney, learning how to play at a high level without Xavier Henry to draw the attention away. But he seems to be figuring things out. He’s driving to the basket with authority lately, and that’s one of the tools that separates him from other players in the state.

I see four teams that I’d consider strong contenders for the 6A boys crown, and PC is definitely in that mix, along with PC West, Edmond Santa Fe and Midwest City.

Other contenders

The PC West boys basketball team: Getting to state for the first time since 1977 and just the second time in school history was quite an accomplishment, and I’m sure they’re relieved to have gotten it done, even though it probably took one more game than they would’ve liked. The usual suspects came through int he win over Lawton to advance. Tyler Neal had 25, Amric Fields had 22 and Josiah Campbell had 10.