BARTLESVILLE BRUIN BOYS LOSE CLOSE ONE AT CLEVELAND TOURNAMENT
Bartlesville High School’s Dennis Duncan (12) drives to the basket during an earlier season game. The Bruins lost a close one against Metro Christian, 49-47, at the Cleveland tournament on Thursday.
BECKY BURCH/Bartlesville Area Sports
By Mike Tupa
Dec. 5, 2025
BARTLESVILLE AREA SPORTS REPORT
(Note: You can hear live coverage of Bartlesville Bruin basketball games on Bartlesville Radio or watch live streaming on the Bartlesville website. Evan Fahrbach is Voice of the Bruins and Ty Kent has been providing color analysis.)
Bartlesville vs. Metro Christian:
This boys basketball battle on Thursday featured a flurry of fluctuations that might drive an owl dizzy.
Unfortunately for the Bartlesville Bruins (1-2), when the back-and-forth finally ended, Metro Christian walked away with a 49-47 victory in the first round of the Cleveland Tournament.
The Bruins registered plenty of highlights. But ice-cold offense in the second quarter — scoring only four points — would chill the Bruins’ quest for victory.
After leading by double-digits at the end of the first quarter, 17-6, the Bruins saw their advantage shrink to two points by halftime, 21-19.
The Metro Christian Patriots completed a positive four-point swing in the second half, 30-26, to eke out the victory.
The Patriots didn’t take the lead until about three minutes left in the game.
At the start, Bartlesville had come out slinging the ball and slicing the nets.
Hudson Eads canned two early three-pointers to help Bartlesville get out to a 12-6 lead.
Moments later, Sutton Huff nailed a trey to stretch the lead to 15-6. The red-hot Bruins finished off the quarter with Trey Collins’ transition layup and a 17-6 lead.
But in the second quarter, the momentum did a 180 in favor of the Patriots. Hunter Holmes and Dennis Duncan each downed a deuce for Bartlesville’s only points in the quarter, which was won by Metro Christian, 13-4. That cut the Bruins’ lead to two points, 21-19, going into intermission.
Bartlesville continued to stay in front — sometimes just barely — throughout the third quarter. The Bruins led by as many as eight, 31-23, after Jackson Barta buried a three-pointer.
Lucas Huck also downed two key free throws for the Bruins.
But Metro Christian whittled the lead down to one point, 35-34, by the end of the third period.
Bartlesville opened the fourth quarter with a 4-1 spurt — including a bucket by Holmes that put him into double-digits (11) — to go ahead by two possessions, 39-35.
But then points became harder to come by.
Metro Christian tied the score, 41-41, and then went ahead around the three-minute mark, 44-41.
The Bruins gritted their teeth and regained the lead, 47-46, on a couple of buckets by Brycen Gutierrez, the second one being a trey with just a little less than two minutes left.
But those would be the final points scored by Bartlesville, allowing Metro Christian to escape with the 49-47 victory.
Play continues in the tourney through Saturday.