Guthrie secures first win of the season in Duncan Tournament

The Guthrie girls basketball team picked up their first win of the season with a 45-42 win over Elgin on day one of the Duncan Chisholm Trail Shoot Out Tournament Tuesday afternoon.

The Lady Jays (1-3) advance to the semifinal where they will take on tournament host Duncan (4-3), who defeated US Grant 77-12. In other first round games Norman North defeated Iowa Park 57-23 and Tahlequah took down Madill 46-36.

Mikaela and Melinda Murillo, once again, set the scoring pace for Guthrie with 24 points combined with Melinda finishing with 13. Not to far behind was Gracynn Smith who finished with 9 points, including two 3-pointers. Six different Lady scored on the evening as head coach Terry Carris had to go to his bench due to early foul trouble.

“We played really well except for three minutes in the second quarter,” assistant coach Jeff Ball said.

Elgin (4-4), who defeated Duncan in their season opener, put on a full court press that gave Guthrie troubles and once settling into the front court Elgin surprised Guthrie with a zone defense. However, the Lady Jays spent a timeout to make the proper adjustments.

In the second half, Elgin continued the full court press, but suddenly had to pull back due to foul trouble. The trouble led to 24 free throws for Guthrie, in which, they made 14 of the charity throws.

The Lady Owls took a rare lead (40-39) with 3:41 left in the game after starting the fourth quarter with a 12-6 run, but Guthrie then out paced Elgin (6-2) in the final minutes of the game.

With just seconds left in the game, Elgin took a shot to tie the game, but missed the shot and freshmen guard Kamber Smedley secured the rebound and was foul. She would make 1-of-2 and finished with four points.

“They did not panic and did what they needed to do by not committing any turnovers, box out and rebound,” Ball said about the Guthrie squad down the final minutes of the game.

Guthrie Scorers: Melinda Murillo 13, Mikaela Murillo 11, Gracynn Smith 9, Page Stevenson 5, Kamber Smedley 4, Sojo Love 3