By Byron Beers/Staff Writer

CHICKASHA — El Reno knew what it was fully capable of doing on the basketball court going into Tuesday night’s season opener at Chickasha.

The Indians, after a solid offseason that included impressive results both during the summer and in preseason scrimmages, just needed to translate what they could do into a real game.
Fourth-year head coach Rodney Haydon had every reason to believe in his new up-tempo brand of basketball, and his squad delivered with rave results against the Fightin’ Chicks, cruising to a 68-51 victory in a contest where the Indians were really never even threatened from the opening tip.

El Reno, which enters the season ranked No. 15 in Class 5A, accomplished everything it wanted — the Indians shot 49 percent overall from the floor, forced Chickasha into 25 turnovers and had balanced scoring.

“That’s what I saying from the beginning is that all we were lacking was results,” Haydon said. “We did it in scrimmages and we won a lot of games over the summer, but that stuff didn’t really matter. We used all of that stuff as motivation and we were able to build confidence from that.

“All of that carried over from the very tip. The kids were ready to play. We went out and jumped on them early and that was really the difference in the game.”