The Cordell Blue Devils’ exciting post-season run came to an end at the area tournament in Minco Saturday night. The Blue Devils, who put together an impressive late-season showing to beat Walters and the Oklahoma Christian Academy to claim the district championship were beaten by Caddo and Stratford this past weekend to end their post-season run.
Cordell’s boys started the weekend on the court where they won their district title, at Walters, facing the Bruins of Caddo. The game was everything one could expect from playoff basketball, two teams battling hard for 32 minutes and leaving it all out on the floor.
The Blue Devils battled the Bruins for the entire game and kept it within striking distance until Caddo finally put it away late in the fourth quarter. In the end, the Bruins pulled away and won the game, 57-43.
Gaige Keister led Cordell in scoring with 21 points. Brady Reimer also finished in double figures, with 12.
“It was a really close game,” said head coach Brandon Gallagher. “We battled with them to about the middle of the fourth quarter when they pulled away. We just couldn’t get enough going offensively.“
The loss put the Blue Devils in the elimination bracket against Stratford, who defeated Carnegie the day before.
The Blue Devils came out strong, playing like there was no tomorrow. Cordell’s boys quickly ran up a 17-4 lead in the first six minutes of play, ending the first quarter doubled up on Stratford, 24-12. The second quarter was more of the same for Cordell, as everything was going their way. The Devils took a 40-18 lead into the locker room at the half.
But Stratford was not ready to roll over. The Stratford boys fought a ferocious third quarter, pouring in 24 points to Cordell’s seven and closed the gap to within five. Stratford continued their offensive and defensive pressure into the fourth quarter, scoring five points as the period opened to tie the game at 47, and shift the momentum into their favor.
The teams battled back and forth after Stratford took their first lead of the game with about six minutes remaining. With just a minute to go, Stratford had pushed that lead to seven points, at 60-53, but then Reimer exploded, hitting back-to-back three pointers to cut the lead to just one. In order to keep Stratford from running out the clock, the Blue Devils fouled a couple of times, but Stratford’s shooters managed four free throws and took home the 64-59 victory.
“This was a crazy game,” Gallagher said. “We played extremely well in the first half, everything clicked well. In the second half we had way too many turnovers, gave up second shots, and had some empty possessions on our end.”
Despite the loss, Gallagher said he was pleased with how his team performed during the season.
“I appreciated how h ard our guys played all year,” he said. “We dealt with a lot this year and never gave up. We’re definitely going to miss Carsen (Nickel) and Gaige in the future, but I’m looking forward to next year.”