Santa Fe Outlasts Norman

Oklahoma City – Tabry Shettron rebounded his own miss three-straight times before willing the ball to finally go through the net.

Shettron’s gutsy play demonstrated the effort the Edmond Santa Fe boys’ basketball team showed in its 60-50 win against Norman at the McGuinness Classic on Friday afternoon.

Santa Fe (5-3) led the entire second half but had to grind at the end to secure the win.

Norman (1-8) closed the deficit to 5 late, but the Tigers missed shots while the Wolves made their free throws.

Shettron, a junior center, said the effort with which the Wolves played was the difference.

“This was one of our best effort games, I would say,” Shettron said. “Good, hard win, and I’m just proud of the team.”

Junior point guard Michael Reeves led the Wolves with 16 points, followed by Shettron’s 12. Reeves also showed good effort in an offensive rebound when he rebounded his own free throw miss. The rest of the Wolves were back at the half court line, but Reeves beat four Tigers to the ball.

Reeves and junior Aidan Vaughn scored the last five points of the game, all from the free throw line as Norman was forced to foul.

Santa Fe coach Troy Lallemand said effort was one of the main things he wanted to see from the Wolves.

“It took a while, but in the third quarter, we kind of imposed out will physically,” Lallemand said. “A lot of our effort was there, but we gotta be smarter, too, and we gotta execute.”

A unique situation arose in the closing moments of the first half. The officials called a foul on Norman’s Nate Wilson, who wears the number 2 jersey. Just before play resumed, the official scorekeeper called the referees to the scorer’s table and informed them the official book did not list a number 2 for Norman.

At first, the officials seemed content to fix the book and move on, but Lallemand insisted the error should result in a technical foul against the Tigers. After a lengthy conversation, the referees agreed. Reeves hit two free throws to extend Santa Fe’s lead to 27-23 at halftime.

Lallemand told the officials it would not have been as big of a deal if it wasn’t a 2-point game.

“It sounds bad, but they come to every coach, and you have to check the book, and you gotta initial it,” Lallemand said. “You gotta double check it, and you gotta make sure all the players’ names (are) right, and (Norman coach Rodney Dindy) signed off on it, and he didn’t have a player in the book, and that’s a technical, and that’s just the rule. It ended up being a bigger deal than what it should have, but they were almost going to let it slide. Especially at that time, it was a 2-point game. You can’t let it slide in a 2-point game. It’s nothing personal against Norman, but that’s the rule.”

The Wolves will face the winner between Deer Creek and Bishop McGuinness at 3 p.m. Saturday in the fifth-place game.