STATE: Results

[PawneeSports]

AT: State Fairgrounds Arena

FINALS

#1 Frontier 55, #8 Roff 48

[PawneeSports]

AT: State Fairgrounds Arena

SEMI-FINALS

#1 Frontier 42, #12 Thomas 41

#8 Roff 56, #6 Okeene 48

[PawneeSports]

AT: Moore High School

QUARTER-FINALS

#1 Frontier 85, #2 Pioneer 77

#12 Thomas 65, #3 New Lima 61

#6 Okeene 47, #5 Beaver 45

#8 Roff 65, #9 Okarche 56

[PawneeSports]

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Intensity, atmosphere and gold
Written by: Pat Quinn, Sports Writer
Published: 03-06-2006

Don’t sell the state basketball playoffs for the small high schools short when it comes to excitement, proven by the atmosphere at Carl Albert and Moore High Schools and State Fairgrounds Arena.

The Arena parking lot instantly becomes the world’s largest used pick-up truck lot in the great Southwest and all of the girl cheerleaders were pale white because there are very few if any tanning salons in Beaver, Roff, Stonewall and the like.

A lesson I was reminded of was it doesn’t have to be big to be good. If you can clear that hurdle you get to see the true intensity of interscholastic competition and the development of the young men involved.

All of the games I covered saw area teams winning, but I really misjudged our young athletes in a first-round game between Beaver and Okeene, played in Moore.

Both teams had a pair of fiery point guards, No. 12 from Okeene, a team that had lost only twice all season, and No. 11 from Beaver, a team that had been beaten only once.

Both were battlers as they hammered and fought throughout the entire game. At several points in the contest it appeared emotions of the two warriors could turn into an ugly scene but it didn’t.

For some unknown reason I started pulling for Okeene and when Beaver’s point guard had a last second shot that rimmed out and Okeene won, 47-45, I felt good for the Whippets.

Then, I saw the emotional Beaver player down on all-fours at center court crying his eyes out. My next thought, someone better keep an eye on this kid when they start the routine hand-shaking ritual.

I found out I was dead wrong about the young man’s character because when it became his turn to high-five No. 12 from Okeene, he concluded it with a warm hug, that was returned with equal enthusiasm, a gesture reserved for competing teenagers as they turn into young men.

My next thought was I should’ve known better than to sell short those tempestuous young players. I forgot they both came from small, western Oklahoma towns where the work ethic doesn’t allow anything short of maximum and honorable effort.

The biggest price I had to pay to witness this scene was driving on that horrible stretch of I-35 between Oklahoma City and Norman. It seems like it has been “under repair” since World War II and that makes one feel they’ll never complete it.

At best, I’m only an intrepid nighttime driver on our interstate systems but everybody else seems to think their manhood is being question if they aren’t sailing at 80 or 85 miles per hour.

If that slap-happy mayor in OKC would quit trying to give the keys to the city treasury to an NBA franchise, maybe there would be sufficient funds available to complete the projects along this and other stretches of road.

[OKLAHOMAMOSES]

Excellant!:thumbsup: :clap: :clap: :clap: