The Sulphur boys played well and split games last week, picking up a big conference win over Tish on Tuesday before falling to Byng again on Friday night.
Sulphur (6-7) played great offensively in a 73-62 win at Tish but fell apart in the 2nd half in a 63-43 loss at Byng.
The Dogs will be at No. 19 (2A) Davis on Tuesday before playing in the Rocky Clarke Invitational in Washington over the weekend.
“I think out of this week moving forward we showed that we took care of business on the road against Tish and proved that we can compete and play with a really talented team in Byng,” said Sulphur head coach Grant Bates.
Sulphur will open with No. 16 (3A) Casady on Thursday at 11:25 a.m.
The Dogs will play the winner or loser of Tecumseh and Broken Bow.
With a win, the Dogs would play Friday at 4:25 and with a loss, Sulphur would play at 11:25 a.m.
“We just need to clean up our stretch of mistakes and put together a cleaner four quarters to make a run come playoff time,” Bates said. “We have a tough finish to the season and it starts this week with Davis and the Washington tournament this weekend.” SULPHUR 73, TISH 62
Huge games from Davion Willis and Bridge Barrett carried Sulphur last Tuesday night in a big win over Tish.
Barrett had 33 points, eight rebounds, four assists and four steals in 11-of-25 from the floor, while Willis poured in 30 of his own to go along with 13 rebounds on 9-of-13 shooting.
The two combined to go 22-of-30 from the foul line. After trailing 31-27 at half, the Dogs exploded for 46 second half points.
After Tish made a three to open up scoring in the 2nd half, Sulphur went on a 14-4 run in the 3rd to take the lead.
Then later, the Dogs went on a 19-10 run midway through the 4th to put things away.
“The key to our win was our offensive execution,” Bates said. “Bridge and Devin both had big games and were aggressive all night.”
The Dogs shot 46% from the floor and had 46 points in the paint. “I thought we were able to score a lot easier than previous games,” Bates said.
Sulphur scored 1.24 points per possession in the win, had a 41-28 advantage on the glass and had 20 second chance points.
“I think it speaks to finding a groove offensively,” he said. “It gave us some confidence after a tough stretch of games on that end. It was nice to score at a higher clip.”
BYNG 63, SULPHUR 43
Sulphur hung around in the first half but Byng pulled away in the second half last Friday night.
“We played a good first half,” said Bates. “We came out ready to go against a talented team.”
The Dogs fell to Byng earlier in the season, losing 60-50. “The second half did not go our way,” Bates said. “They turned us over and they started making a lot of shots. So our lack of execution combined with their stretch of making shots cost us.”
Sulphur is continuing to work on putting four quarters together, playing hard and limiting mistakes.
“I thought we played hard,” Bates said. “We just didn’t put four quarters together. We got tired and made some mistakes and they capitalized. Simple as that.”
