WHEN 100 IS MINIMUM
Lomega's girls basketball program has brought some of the highest scoring games in state history
Ady Wilson knows the difference is small. Just one little point.
And still, every time the lights on the scoreboard switch from 99 to 100, it causes a big celebration.
“When we hit that hundred mark,” Wilson said, “we're all up on the bench, cheering.”
She and her Lomega teammates have celebrated that milestone three times this season, the most of any high school girls basketball team in Oklahoma. And a couple of those games, an eye-popping 116-point game as well as a 111-point performance, are two of the four highest singlegame totals in the past eight years, according to iwasatthegame.com.
Lomega has been among the state's highest scoring teams for more than a decade, but this season, the Raiders have taken it to another level with some of the highest scoring games in state history.
“I don't know,” Lomega coach Kevin Lewallen said, “if that's the list you want to be on.”
You read that right. The man leading one of the highest-scoring girls teams in Oklahoma's five-on-five era isn't sure he
“The people that just look in the paper and see `116,' they're probably like, `Gawd, they must have just pressed the whole game and just tried to beat them as bad as you could. That's not what we're trying to do.”
Lomega coach Kevin Lewallen
likes having his program attached to all those big point totals. He knows there's a stigma out there — if you put up that many points, you must be running up the score — and even as Lomega prepares to open play in the Class B state tournament Tuesday, Lewallen is sure some folks have labeled him and his girls.
Not as the defending state champs, though they are.
Not as a team with a chance at an undefeated state title, though they are that, too.
No, Lewallen suspects some folks think Lomega is a bunch of bullies.
“The people that just look in the paper and see `116,' they're probably like, `Gawd, they must have just pressed the whole game and just tried to beat them as bad as you could,'” he said. “That's not what we're trying to do.”
So, what are Lewallen and Lomega trying to do? What is the story behind the big numbers? Glad you asked. First, a little history. Lomega is among the best girls basketball programs in state history. No school has won more girls basketball titles (13), and the last seven have been won playing a run-and-gun style implemented since Lewallen took over in 2004.
“Make other teams play at a pace they are not used to,” he said of the ideology. “I just thought the best way to do that was with the full-court press.”
The school an hour northwest of Oklahoma City has scored a lot of points and won a lot of games over the years with that style.
But this year's team tops them all. It goes to state averaging 85.0 points, the highest by an Oklahoma girls team in the past eight seasons, according to iwasatthegame.com. Unlike some teams that have averaged over 80 a game — the Norman North boys led by Trae Young, for example — the Lomega girls don't have a lone superstar who scores 40 or 50 points regularly.
“Probably the biggest deal with this group is,” Lewallen said, “they can all score.”
Even though Wilson and Emma Duffy stand out as Lomega's top options, nine of the girls have scored at least 20 points in a game this season. And the depth extends all the way down the bench; in that 116-point game, the third-string players were on the court for the entire fourth quarter and scored 25 points.
Even when Lewallen takes out his starters and his top reserves, Lomega can keep right on scoring. And while Lewallen regularly tells them not to press, he isn't going to tell them not to score.
Because Class B teams have so few players, Lomega doesn't play any freshmen games and there have only been a couple times this season where an opponent has had enough players for a junior-varsity game. That means the girls at the end of the bench don't get playing time elsewhere.
Lewallen wants them to make the most of the minutes that they get.
So do the starters.
“I love watching them out there,” Duffy said. “They practice against us — they're the team that scrimmages us every day — so I know they're capable of scoring and playing really well.”
Wilson said, “It's definitely a team effort.”
Lewallen loves seeing his reserves get the chance to play, and frankly, he knows the in-game experience is needed for those who will step into bigger roles next season.
But he knows, too, that something about hitting a hundred rankles some folks.
“Now, I think it's great,” he said of girls teams scoring 100 points in a game. “Don't get me wrong — like I said, I'm not trying to run it up — but I think it's great that there's high school girls basketball teams … that can score 100 points, that want to play that way, that have put in the work and effort to be able to do so.”
Some people might see a hundred points and scoff, but they don't know the whole story.
At Lomega, the story is one of hard work and dedication, teamwork and excellence.
It is one worth celebrating.
Jenni Carlson: Jenni can be reached at 405475-4125 or jcarlson@oklahoman.com. Like her at facebook.com/JenniCarlsonOK, follow her at twitter.com/jennicarlson_ok, and support her work and that of other Oklahoman journalists by purchasing a digital subscription today.