BETHANY — Beleaguered by illness, Bethany couldn’t keep up with Newcastle, 56-40, Tuesday (Jan. 21) in a Western Athletic Conference showdown of 4A ranked teams.

The eighth-ranked Lady Bronchos (9-4, 3-2) had nine of their 15 players deal with the flu or something similar over the past week

“That’s an energy zapper, including myself,” Bethany coach Eric Sailer said. “I know that I was down bad.”

Couple the recovery from illness with ninth-ranked Newcastle’s height and athleticism, Bethany struggled and trailed from the 4:32 mark in the first quarter.

“We knew that Newcastle was going to be a really good opponent,” Sailer said. “They have lots of guards that can handle the ball and shoot it.”

Bethany struggled with Newcastle’s full-court press which helped lead to 18 turnovers.

“We allowed their token pressure just to fluster us. We never just kind of settled down,” Sailer said.

Newcastle junior Reagan Greenroyd also nailed five 3-pointers en route to 21 points.

“Knowing that we were just beat physically, I thought maybe we can run a little bit of zone here and rest our legs a little bit. That was a bad idea,” Sailer said.

By halftime, Newcastle’s lead had ballooned to 31-18. Bethany opened the second half on a 5-0 run to cut the deficit to eight points (31-23).

Newcastle pulled away from that point for the win.

Senior Kayten Donley led the team with nine points, 10 rebounds and two blocks.

Sailer said Donley was dealing the same illness he was dealing with.

“I was down for three days and couldn’t get out of bed,” Sailer said. “I could not imagine playing a basketball game, feeling the way that I do today and she she had to.

“She could have stayed home. But, she didn’t and that’s Kayten in a nutshell.”

Sophomores Ali Linn and Camryn Regier along with junior Reese Harris had eight points each.

Regier had four rebounds, one block and one steal. Harris added five rebounds and was 4-of-7 from the field.

Freshman Kamryn Donley had six points, including four points during the third quarter surge.

Bethany shot 33 percent from the field and struggled at free throw line, hitting 13-of-21 (62 percent), below the season average of 72 percent.

“Being able to knock those open free throws down would make a big difference if we hit them,” Sailer said.

UP NEXT

The Lady Bronchos head to Purcell Thursday-Saturday (Jan. 23-25)for the Heart of Oklahoma Basketball Tournament.

Bethany will meet Santa Fe South Pathways (1-12) Thursday at 4 p.m.

Photographs courtesy of Kristie Escoe of Life in Action Photography.

	1	2	3	4	F
Newcastle (12-4, 6-0)	17	14	9	16	56
Bethany (9-4, 3-2)	8	9	11	11	40