The Rocky Clarke Invitational Washington Basketball Tournament begins January 18 at the Warrior Event Center.
Washington’s girls tip off at 5:40 p.m. against Casady.
The boys will play Cache at 6:55 p.m.
The tournament runs though Saturday.
Both boys and girls brackets can be found on page 3B of this week’s Purcell Register.
Girls
The Washington girls notched two more conference wins, defeating Lindsay (50-31) and Marlow (62-33).
Preslee Johnson led the team in scoring against Lindsay with 14 points.
Despite holding the Leopards to 31 points, head coach Kale Simon didn’t think his team defended well in the game.
“We didn’t guard great against Lindsay,” Simon said. “But give their players credit for some of that. We regrouped afterwards and had a couple good practices to work on things.”
Lindsay was held to point totals of 11, 8, 4 and 8 by quarter.
“We know we can guard and we are trying to guard for 32 minutes and not give up any bad stretches,” Simon said. “We pride ourselves on responding to mistakes. We want to shorten the time we don’t play well during the game and lessen the bad times.”
Marlow
Washington got off to a hyper-fast start in their game against Marlow.
They led by 16 points at the end of the first quarter and extended that lead to 24 by halftime.
“In the first half we played as well as we have all season,” Simon said. “We’re finding our identity and we’re faster paced on offense. Preslee Johnson hit four threes in the second quarter and we were in attack mode.”
Johnson again led the Warriors in scoring with 19. It was also a game-high total.
Kelby Beller scored 13 points and Shelbie Caveness had 10.
“Kelby is doing a good job of advancing the ball and finding teammates in transition,” Simon said. “Her teammates are running in transition and doing a good job of being there. It’s a team effort. We’ve been in more of an attack mode, which makes us tough to guard.”
The Warriors are scoring on three levels and it puts tremendous stress on opposing defenses. They’re hitting three pointers, making lay-ups and hitting shots from mid-range.
Washington is ranked No. 1 in Class 3A with a record of 12-1.
Boys
Head coach Trevor Smith’s boys team took a win against Lindsay, 58-51.
“We played really well against Lindsay,” Smith confirmed. “We only had eight turnovers and we played a complete game.”
He said his team executed in areas they’ve emphasized in practice.
“We were competing against Lindsay, not ourselves too,” Smith said.
Marlow
The Marlow game was another story.
“We competed against ourselves against Marlow,” Smith said. “We had over 20 turnovers in the game. We didn’t play very well, but give credit to Marlow. We just couldn’t get into a rhythm and we were playing from behind the whole game.”
Washington is 5-8 this season.
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