OKLAHOMA CITY — For the first minute and a half on the game clock in Putnam City North’s contest with Deer Creek Saturday (March 1), the Lady Panthers scored 11 straight points and kept the Lady Antlers from crossing midcourt, stepping in front of passes, knocking balls away and frustrating the visitors.

North continued that intense defensive pressure and collected 25 steals in a 94-55 rout in the Class 6A West Region 3 Championship.

“We heard some stuff going around against the other teams, and we knew we wanted to come here and get it done early,” North senior Brandie Harrod said.

Nearly every inbounds play after a North bucket was heavily contested at a frantic pace. When Deer Creek go the ball across the timeline, possessions were sped up, leading to other turnovers.

“It’s chaotic and exciting,” junior Kiana Gray said.

North coach Logan Martin was impressed with her squad after seeing some recent “flat” performances. She hadn’t seen a performance quite like that before.

Martin said sometimes at practice she’ll have six or seven offensive players line up in a full court press situation against her starters.

“We try to make it challenging for ourselves and really make the game faster and rotating quickly and making it chaos,” Martin said.

Martin has also drafted North boys junior varsity players to scrimmage her team to work on physical play.

“Boys are quicker, stronger, faster, so it’s great for us to be challenged,” Martin said. “I think it showed.”

The Lady Panthers’ defensive intensity was matched with rapid scoring. After one quarter, North led 34-9. By halftime, the lead had ballooned to 61-20.

Gray scored a game-high 26 points with six 3-pointers.

Harrod added 24 points, including 12 points in the first quarter. But, it was her rebounding that impressed Martin.

“We challenge her all the time to dominate the boards and she’ll score if she rebounds and plays defense,” Martin said.

Senior Nykaiya Dillard also scored 24 points, 15 of which came in the second half.

Deer Creek sophomore Adriana Radinovic scored 24 points and freshman Nadia Traylor added 22 points, most of which came in the second half after the game was out of hand.

The win ran North’s winning streak to 17 games.

UP NEXT

Putnam City North plays Mustang (22-4) in the Area 1 Championship Thursday (March 6) at Noble.

The Lady Broncos beat Choctaw, 61-34, Saturday.

The winner advances to the Class 6A State Tournament which begins March 11. The loser will have to win against the winner of a contest between regional runner-ups to earn a state berth.

The quality of the opponents increases with the move to the Area tournament.

“I hope we’re picking up momentum at the right time,” Martin said. “Absolutely from here on out, every night you gotta show up because everybody’s good.”

Harrod agrees.

“We need to keep on going, keep up the pace and get better. We’re gonna play better teams, so we gotta get better.”

	1	2	3	4	F
Deer Creek (13-10)	9	11	16	19	55
Putnam City North (25-1)	34	27	22	11	94