Buffaloes take two from Guymon
The Garden City Buffaloes girls and boys basketball teams swept the Guymon Tigers Friday night, with the girls winning 59-50 and the boys rolling to a 57-38 win.
Girls’ head coach Matt Pfeifer had said prior to the game he didn’t know where the scoring was going to come from, having lost his top scorers from a year ago, but Julie Calzonetti and Taryn Tabor answered that question with 19 and 14 points respectively.
It was Taryn Tabor early, as she hit a pair of three-pointers in the 1st quarter to trigger a 10-0 Garden City run that put the Buffaloes up 16-6 six-and-a-half minutes into the game. Tabor would score 10 of her points in the first half.
Guymon’s Maggie Landes opened the game with a trey, but after Garden City answered with a pair of baskets, the Tigers never led again.
“It was ugly at first, but I thought once we settled down, things started looking better,” Pfeifer said. “Offensively, I thought we shared the ball really well.”
Guymon did pull to within one in the 2nd quarter and trailed just 28-27 at halftime.
The Lady Buffs scored the first five points of the 2nd half to stretch the lead to six, 33-27. A Johanna Quintero trey would cut the lead to 3, but Guymon never got any closer. Sophomore Julie Calzonetti scored 16 of her team-high 19 points in the 2nd half, including a pair of 3rd quarter treys, as Garden City built a 45-34 lead after three quarters.
The Buffaloes pushed the lead to 14 in the 4th quarter before the Tigers closed to within 7 with less than a minute to play. Garden City scored the game’s final basket in the waning seconds to seal the win, 59-50.
“I wasn’t really happy with our defense,” Pfeifer said, “but it’s something to build on.”
Calzonetti and Tabor were the only Buffaloes in double figures. Felicity Rodriguez added 9 points. Meagan Bellar led Guymon with 19 points.
In the boys’ game, the Buffaloes struggled against Guymon’s 1-2-2 half-court zone trap, scoring only 15 1st-half points. After a 9-9 opening quarter, Garden City continually turned the ball over against the half-court trap and managed only one 2nd quarter field goal, a three-pointer by Carlos Acosta in the final seconds to pull within two at the half, 17-15.
Coach Jacy Holloway was not pleased with how his team struggled against the zone in the 1st half. “We knew what they were going to run, so it wasn’t a huge shock to us. But it was a huge shock to me that we didn’t handle it.”
The Buffaloes solved the Tiger zone in the 2nd half with quick ball movement and a strong transition game, opening the 3rd quarter on a 7-0 run.
“We needed to get the ball moving,” Holloway said, “and get a lot more looks at the rim.”
Guymon’s top scorer, Mark Arledge, picked up his 4th foul midway through the 3rd quarter and without him, the Tigers couldn’t keep up. Garden City stretched the lead to 8, 35-27 after three quarters, and then to 12, 39-27, in the first minute of the final quarter.
Guymon cut the lead to seven, but Garden City pulled away over the last five minutes to win by 19, 57-38.
“We were more aggressive in the second half.”
Three Buffaloes led the way in double figures, Carlos Acosta with 14, Jarrod Springston with 12 and Kyler Lamb with 11. Lamb scored all of his points in the 2nd half, including three baskets from beyond the arc. The Buffaloes won the battle of the boards, 37-28, and shot 53% from the field compared to just 29% for the Tigers.
Both Garden City teams are now 1-0 and will host the three-day Roundball Classic starting on Thursday.
