OKLAHOMA CITY — Another long layoff for Putnam City North didn’t seem to matter as the Panthers routed Broken Arrow, 68-27, Friday (Jan. 30) in a 6A-3 contest.

The blowout win started with North’s signature ‘chaotic’ full-court press in which the visiting Tigers were harassed which led to turnovers.

North coach Logan Martin said the press was intentional as the Tigers rely on offensive sets in the front court.

“We wanted to try to disrupt that and take away their first options,” Martin said. “I thought we did a good job of that in the half-court.”

In all, the Panthers had 13 steals. When Broken Arrow was able to break the press, they weren’t able to get any offensive rhythm.

“We wanted to really kind of speed them up early and put pressure, make them feel uncomfortable,” Martin said. “We had some good rotations out of our traps and just kind of made the game chaotic again.”

North took advantage of the chaos and sprinted out to a 21-4 first quarter lead en route to the 35-point win.

Senior Jayla Constant finished with a game-high 16 points. She added eight rebounds, two assists and two steals. The point guard and UNLV signee was named a McDonald’s All-American nominee, it was announced Thursday.

Senior Tehlia Kutsoati added 10 points, four rebounds and two steals off the bench.

North had three players just shy of double figures in scoring. Seniors Da’Nae Jefferson, Kiana Gray and Makiya Moore each scored nine points. Jefferson had eight rebounds, three assists and two steals.

Moore added six rebounds and two blocked shots.

Gray had a rebounds and six steals. While many recognize her signature 3-pointers (Gray had three treys Friday), she also makes an impact defensively.

“She’s pretty sneaky on the defensive end,” Martin said of Gray. “It’s kind of incredible that she’s got a good sense of where to be and the right reads to get steals in the backcourt.”

Senior Paige Williams followed with seven points, three rebounds and two assists.

North already had a weeklong layoff from game action after beating Edmond Santa Fe on Jan. 22. The heavy snow and extremely cold temperatures kept most, if not all teams in the metro area off the court for most of the week.

Martin said the downtime made her “nervous as a coach.”

“I know everybody was in the same boat as we were,” Martin said. “We tried to make practices competitive and get a lot of up and down and trying to simulate game-like as much as we could just to keep everybody in shape and ready to go.”

UP NEXT

The Panthers (18-1, 9-0) travel to Stillwater (8-7, 4-5) Saturday (Jan. 31) for a 6A-3 contest.

The game was postponed from Tuesday after snow and ice cancelled school and all school activities.

The Pioneers lost to Muskogee, 44-35, Friday.

North beat Stillwater at home on Dec. 9, 56-37.

Following that, the Panthers have a homecoming matchup Tuesday (Feb. 3) with Muskogee (16-4, 8-2) that looms large. The Roughers took the Panthers to double overtime in Muskogee on Jan. 3 before North won on a late 3-pointer from Gray.

	1	2	3	4	F
Broken Arrow (10-7, 5-4)	4	6	13	4	27
Putnam City North (18-1, 9-0)	21	12	18	11	68