Oakley Wins Three of Four
On Friday, January 14th, the Oakley Plainsmen came to town to compete in high school basketball. The St. Francis varsity boys won their contest against the Plainsmen, but Oakley won the other three games played.
In varsity boys action, the first quarter play was back-and-forth, with the teams trading baskets throughout the period. Oakley held a slim 12-14 lead after one quarter.
In the second period, St. Francis went on a 10-2 run concluding with a pair of Zach Zweygardt free throws to advance the margin to 22-16 . Then it was Oakley's turn to make a run. A Patrick Loftus trey with 1:10 left in the half gave the Plainsmen a 24-25 lead. Isaac Schiltz closed the first half scoring with at trey to bring the halftime score to 27-25.
With 5:05 remaining in the third period, St. Francis had opened up a 33-28 lead. Oakley scored on a turnover on an in-bounds pass by the Indians to cut the lead to 35-32 with 3:48 to go. The quarter closed with St. Francis leading 43-38 after Dylan Peter scored on a nice pass from Schiltz at the buzzer.
The Indians opened up a ten point lead (50-40) with 5:50 remaining in the contest. St. Francis went on to win the contest 54-47 over a scrappy Plainsmen team.
Dylan Peter had a good evening, leading the Indian scoring with 18 points and gathering numerous rebounds. Isaac Schiltz added 15 points and Garrett Figgins 14 to the Indian point total. St. Francis was 6-15 from the charity stripe, but only committed 7 fouls keeping the Plainsmen off the free throw line.
Oakley was led in scoring by Patrick Loftus with 18 points. No other Plainsmen scored over seven points. Oakley was 0-2 from the free throw line for the game. The Plainsmen committed 15 fouls.
The junior varsity boys lost to the Plainsmen 30-61.
In varsity girls action, the Lady Indians hung with the Lady Plainsmen for one quarter but ended up losing the contest by a large margin. Oakley jumped out to a 4-7 lead with 6:06 left in the first quarter but soon stretched their lead to 7-16. With 1:25 left in the period, St. Francis had closed the gap to 12-16. St. Francis cut the lead to one (15-16), then made a turnover on the possession in which they could have taken the lead. With two seconds left on the clock, Oakley had the ball out-of-bounds under their basket. Oakley scored an easy basket to take a first quarter lead 15-18.
In the second quarter, the game was close early. The score stood at 21-23 about halfway through the period, but then the Lady Plainsmen began to get easy baskets and earned a 21-32 lead at halftime.
In the third period, the Lady Indians had difficulty scoring. When St. Francis got their first basket of the quarter at the 3:08 mark, the Lady Plainsmen were leading 23-49. Kaitlin Figgins scored a basket a short time later to give the Lady Indians their only four points of the quarter. St. Francis trailed 25-51 after three quarters of play.
Oakley stretched the lead to thirty points 29-59 with four plus minutes to go in the game. The remainder of the game was played with a running clock according to NWKL rules. Oakley out-scored the Lady Indians 13-34 in the second half to win 34-66.
Kaitlin Figgins (12) and Sarah Trembly (10) led the Lady Indian scoring. Pilkington (21), Hubert (12), and Weiser (11) led the Lady Plainsmen. St. Francis was 6 of 15 from the free throw line while Oakley was 10-18.
The junior varsity girls game was also won by Oakley. St. Francis trailed 9-23 at halftime and 15-36 after three quarters of play. Oakley won the contest by a 22-47 margin.
