BARTLESVILLE BASKETBALL: GIRLS ARE 5-3; BOYS FALL TO EDMOND SANTA FE
Bartlesville High School’s Sami Sheaffer (15) drives the ball during an earlier season game. The Lady Bruins defeated Edmond Santa Fe 72-67 at home Friday afternoon.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
Dec. 20, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
For the first time in seven years, the Bartlesville High School girls basketball team has won five games before Christmas.
The current version of Lady Bruin scrappers scraped together a scintillating showing Friday to stump the Edmond Santa Fe Lady Wolves in an afternoon showdown at the Bruin Fieldhouse.
Paced by Sami Sheaffer and Shaylyn Ishem with 26 and 15 points, respectively, the Bartlesville girls blitzed to a 72-57 win to wrap up their first semester schedule with a 5-3 record.
The last time Santa’s sled looped into Bartlesville after such a successful start by the Lady Bruins was in December 2018.
While the Lady Bruins and their fans had plenty of reason to go “Ho! Ho! Ho!” on Friday, the Bruin basketball team is still hoping the Ghost of Basketball Future is not too far away.
Bartlesville boys fought valiantly — displaying a big growth spurt of progress from earlier in the week.
Bartlesville’s next scheduled playing date is in the first week of January following the Christmas break.
Following are more details from Friday’s contests.
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Bartlesville High School’s Dennis Duncan (12) goes to the basket during a earlier season game. The Bruins fell to Edmond Santa Fe 84-47 at home on Friday afternoon.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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BOYS: Santa Fe 84, Bartlesville 47
No, Santa Fe definitely was not 34 points better than Bartlesville.
The Wolves dominated the fourth quarter, 23-9 to inflate the final margin on what had been a pretty feisty battle the middle two quarters.
The two factors that doomed the Bruin hopes early was their struggle the first few minutes against the Wolves’ full-court pressure and their arctic-chilled shooting, particularly from mid-to-long range.
Santa Fe burst to leads of 8-0 and 14-5. Scoring first-quarter points for Bartlesville were Luke Massey on a layup, Titus Huck on a free throw and Hudson Eads on a backdoor layup.
By the end of the first quarter Santa Fe led, 19-5. The Bruins began to narrow the competitive gap and put the brakes on Santa Fe’s pulling away. But the Wolves still won the quarter and led by 22 at halftime, 38-16.
The third quarter saw Trae Collins heat up on the offensive end, scoring four early points as the Bruins whittled away some of the lead.
Massey, Sutton Huff and Dennis Duncan also scored crucial points to keep the Wolves from further separation. During one short spurt Duncan scored six points.
Jackson Barta and Huff tallied late points in the third period to make it a 23-point lead at the end of the third period — meaning Santa Fe had outscored Bartlesville by only four points the middle two quarters even though keeping their starters on the floor.
Collins’ opened the fourth quarter scoring with a trey to cut the lead to 20 points, 61-41. But the Wolves then reeled off a 10-0 run and it was all done but the final buzzer.
Unofficially, Collins came in with 13 points, Huff contributed nine and Duncan added seven.
Bartlesville, which is led by first-year head coach Jake Christenson, is 3-4 going into Christmas — the first time since December 2018 that Bartlesville has had three wins prior to the end of December.
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Bartlesville High School’s Cadence Gray (11) fights for the ball during an earlier season game. The Lady Bruins defeated Edmond Santa Fe 72-67 at home Friday afternoon.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
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GIRLS: Bartlesville 72, Santa Fe 57
Joining Sheaffer and Ishem as a double-digit scorer for Bartlesville was Emma Zimmerman with 12 points. Kenzie Denny and Cadence Gray would add six points apiece.
But it was Addison Jones’ hook shot in the opening minutes that seemed to create spark that fired up the Lady Bruin offense.
Her bucket — launched from the middle of the paint — pushed Bartlesville into the lead, 8-7, and helped trigger a 23-12 run that set Bartlesville's blistering pace.
The spitfire spurt ended with a Sheaffer layup that stretched Bartlesville’s lead to double-digits, 30-20. Santa Fe made a mini-comeback, but by halftime Bartlesville led by 11, 38-27, with Ishem hitting a late deuce off an offensive rebound.
Bartlesville continued to widen the gap and led by 21 at the end of the third quarter. The Lady Bruins would get to a 23-point lead on Gray’s basket, 70-47, and then pull ahead 25 points on Zimmerman’s final bucket.
Edmond Santa Fe would finish the game with a 10-0 run to make the final margin a bit more respectable.
Veteran Lady Bruin head coach Justyn Shaw guided the Lady Bruins to their first district win of the season and their second home win.