After losing to Anadarko in the opening round of the Anadarko Tournament, the El Reno High School boys basketball team dropped a five-point, 57-52 decision to the Duncan Demons Friday.

“Duncan jumped on us early. We were outscored 19-10 in the first quarter, then battled back. In fact, we played pretty well in the second, third and fourth quarters, but that start just killed us,” head coach Rodney Haydon said.

Glen Wedman led the team in scoring with 16 points. Corey Standerfer picked up 15 points.
Jared Krittenbrink and Todd Palmer each dropped in eight points.

Eric Palmer contributed three points and Ryan Hughey added two to the total.

“Duncan is known for their zone, and normally we don’t do very well in the zone. We’ve had games where we’ve only picked up 30 or 35 points when we’re facing the zone. Today, we put up 52 against a good zone defense,” Haydon said.

“We scored well, but we didn’t play good defense.”

Haydon said his team struggled to execute their man-to-man defense properly.

“We don’t do real well when we have to go zone, so we had to stick with the man. After a
while, it got better. Against Anadarko, we did pretty well,” he said.

“We played really hard, and had good intensity all night. We got some guys playing who hadn’t played minutes in the past.”

El Reno’s lineup has been shuffled with the departure of four players, including three starters.

Damien Hayes, Michael Boblit, Byron Chapel and Adrian Heartfield all left the team during the break.

“They left for personal reasons,” coach Tim Ray said.

Haydon said the change in personnel is early enough that his less-seasoned players will have time to adjust to new roles before the team reaches the critical part of its schedule.

“We’re going to get these guys in here and get them going,” he said.

He points to the success of new starter Wedman as a sign of the team’s new potential.

“Wedman played really well. I always knew he had the potential, he just hadn’t had an opportunity to have a lot of playing time. Now he has that chance,” he said.

Anadarko, 42 El Reno, 31
Strong scoring in the middle quarters could not save El Reno from a 42-31 loss to Anadarko in the opening round of the tournament.

El Reno was outscored 9-5 and 18-5 in the first and fourth quarters, negating their efforts in the second and third quarters where they outscored Anadarko 21-15.

Standerfer and Krittenbrink led the team with eight points apiece. Standerfer was 2-of-3 from the line and hit three buckets. Krittenbrink was 3-of-3 from the line, and hit one trey and one two-pointer.

Todd Palmer was also perfect from the line with three shots on his way to a seven-point finish.

Wedman ended the game with four points and Eric Palmer and Will Stiles each had two.