MUCH-IMPROVED BARTLESVILLE TEAMS WAGE GRITTY BATTLES AT BROKEN ARROW
Bartlesville High School’s Titus Huck (10) battles during an earlier season game. The Bruins fell to Broken Arrow, 75-45, on the road on Tuesday.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
Dec. 4, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
What a difference 11 months can make.
Back on January 7, Broken Arrow High School basketball teams swept visiting Bartlesville High by 38 and 53 points in the girls’ and boys’ games, respectively.
During Tuesday’s rematch at Broken Arrow, the results turned out much better for Bartlesville.
In the girls’ contest, Broken Arrow withstood several Lady Bruin rallies to win by 19, 74-55.
And in the boys’ battle, Bartlesville trailed by only 15 early in the fourth quarter before Broken Arrow went on a scoring frenzy in the final few minutes to win by 30, 75-45.
Either way one looks at it, the Bruin and Lady Bruins made a positive statement they are both headed in the right direction.
Addison Jones, Jaylin Manley and Shaylyn Ishem also turned in strong minutes in the main rotation.
Next up, both teams begin tournament play Thursday, the Bruins (1-1) in Cleveland in Osage County and the Lady Bruins (1-1) in Missouri.
Following are summaries of Tuesday’s games.
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GIRLS
To harken back to an analogy with the 1950s Cleveland Browns defense, the Lady Bruins bent but never really broke.
Broken Arrow opened the second quarter with a 17-3 run to pull out to a 23-point lead, 38-15.
But Bartlesville dug in, stiffened and competed evenly the rest of the way. More than evenly — they outscored Broken Arrow 40-36 in the final 18 minutes, or so.
Sami Sheaffer pumped in 22 points to lead the Lady Bruin attack, followed by Kenzie Denny and Emma Zimmerman with 14 and 13, respectively.
The remainder of the Lady Bruins combined for just six points.
Despite early foul concerns, Bartlesville — which is coached by Justyn Shaw — kept the deficit to a single margin by the end of the first quarter, 20-12.
But the Lady Tigers then scored a flurry of points set up by their defensive pressure.
They opened the quarter with a 7-0 spurt before Sheaffer hit from the middle of the paint to trim their lead to 13, 27-14.
But Broken Arrow revved up for an 11-1 run, with Denny’s free throw the only point for Bartlesville during that stretch.
Suddenly trailing by 23, Bartlesville scrapped back.
They outscored Broken Arrow, 6-3, the remainder of the half to go into intermission trailing by an even 20, 41-21.
Broken Arrow started the third quarter strong, despite a deuce by Bartlesville’s Cadence Gray, to push back ahead by 23, 48-25.
But Zimmerman — who had just two points at that juncture — heated up like a rocket ship on take off. She would score 11 points the final quarter-and-a-half to provide a large chunk of the “oomph!” in Bartlesville’s comeback.
She reeled off five straight points — including a trey — as Bartlesville took a big bite out of the lead.
Unfortunately, Broken Arrow managed to score enough to maintain about the same margin — and the Lady Tigers put on a mini-spurt to lead by 24 after three quarters, 56-32.
Bartlesville continued to fight, however, and outscored the Lady Tigers, 23-19, in the final period.
Multiple times Bartlesville narrowed the lead to 19 points, including at the end.
The measuring stick suggested that if Bartlesville continues to compete like it did for most of this game — particularly the second half — its favorite letter in the alphabet is going to be “W.”
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Bartlesville High School’s Emma Zimmerman (5) takes a shot during an earlier season game. The Lady Bruins fell to Broken Arrow, 74-55, on the road on Tuesday.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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BOYS
Few saw this level of competitiveness coming against the Tigers — and it bodes promising for the Bartlesville Bruins the rest of the season.
Other than returning a player from injury from last season, this was pretty much the personnel set that lost by 53 points last season at Broken Arrow.
Of course these Bruins are a year older — stronger, more athletic, more experienced, hungrier, more varsity I.Q., fundamentally sounder and tougher.
Guided by first year head coach Jake Christenson, the Bruins threatened to shock the world in Tuesday’s district opener.
They pieced together a grueling, gritty rally that got them within 15, 58-43, early in the fourth quarter, on Dennis Duncan’s trey and Hunter Holmes’ offensive rebound and putback.
Fifteen-point comebacks in one quarter are not unheard of, especially when the Bruins owned the momentum.
But Broken Arrow, which didn’t commit fully to its reserves until the last couple of minutes, reasserted its size and rebounding advantage — and the Bruins’ shooting touch cooled off — to storm to the 30-point win.
This was definitely a case where the final margin did not tell the story.
And one senses the Bruins are going to write a lot of winning scripts this season to bounce back from last year’s three-win season.
Trey Collins and Duncan netted 14 and 12 points, respectively, followed by Brycen Gutierrez with eight clutch second-half points off the bench, Holmes with five and Hunter Eads, Luke Massey and Sutton Huff with two apiece.
The game did not start out well for Bartlesville.
The much-taller Tiger crew bolted to lead of 9-0, 11-1 and 18-3.
Bartlesville ended the first quarter with some fire — including Collins’ drive into traffic and under-and-up layup — to trim the margin to 14, 21-7, going into the second quarter.
From that moment on, however, the Bruins would play Broken Arrow pretty even for the next two-and-a-half quarters — a moral triumph in and of itself.
Collins went on a personal 5-0 run — including an assist by Eads — to bring the margin back to 14, 28-14, about midway through the second quarter.
Duncan’s three-pointer pulled the Bruins to within 13, 30-17
It became a 12-point difference, 32-20, after Holmes scored off another Eads’ assist.
Unfortunately, that would be the closest the Bruins would trail and Broken Arrow went into halftime up by 19, 41-22.
The margin ping-ponged between 16-to-23 points throughout the third period.
Then Gutierrez came off the pine and found the range.
He scorched the nets with eight points within the final few minutes of the third period — including two treys — and Duncan scored on a back-door layup to narrow Broken Arrow’s lead to 19, 57-38.
Duncan’s three-pointer and Holmes’ stick-back made it a 15-point game, 58-43, with plenty of time left to at least make the Tigers sweat.
But Broken Arrow tightened up on its offensive rebounding — and Bartlesville’s shooting suffered an inopportune slump — and the Tigers went on a 17-2 run to end the game.
On the positive side of the ledger, the Bruins moved the ball with crisp precision passing, ran their offense well and competed hard on defense. They set themselves up for a lot of open looks on shots — but the ball didn’t fall through enough, at least not in the early and late stages of the game. Broken Arrow also used its superior height well, especially on its offensive boards, although the Bruins found ways to grab a lot of defensive and offensive boards.
Bartlesville will be on the road the next couple of weeks before its next home game.