By SHAWN YORKS Sports Editor GUYMON — When Guymon High School football coach Joe Litsch began practice this week, he noticed something different. Several key starters were missing. The culprit, a flu bug that’s making the rounds at GHS. “We’ve been bitten by the flu bug,” said head coach Joe Litsch. “We’ve got some starters, I haven’t seen them this week.” The Tigers are coming off a 42-7 loss to Dalhart, Texas. “They’re a pretty good ballclub,” Litsch said of the Golden Wolves, who travel to Brownfield, Texas tomnorrow night. “After viewing the film, we didn’t play technique fundamentally sound on defense. Offensively, we’d get something good and then shoot ourselves in the foot. “But don’t get me wrong, Dalhart’s pretty good.” Liberal opened its season last week with a 40-8 win over Ulysses, Kan. — the first opening-game win in seven years for the Redskins. “Their offensive and defensive fronts are both very good,” Litsch said. “They’re like us, they’re two years better at what they’re doing.” Liberal won last year’s contest 28-0 and won the 2008 game at Guymon by the same score, as well. The two teams hadn’t played in nearly 20 years until then. “They’ve got a receiver that’s 6-5, about 200-215 pounds that’s got our attention,” Litsch said. “The quarterback does a good job of getting the ball to him.” That receiver, Jade Cathey, caught three touchdown passes, returned a punt for a touchdown and recovered a Ulysses fumble last week. The punt return was Liberal’s first touch of the ball of 2010. With just eight receptions, Cathey tallied 151 yards. The quarterback is Slader McVey, who completed 14 passes for 243 yards and ran for a score. Watch out for Isaac Gallegos and Archie Mills out of the backfield, as well, for Liberal. “We’re just worried about the Guymon Tigers and trying to get better for our district run,” Litsch said. “We’re preparing to win. We’re not making excuses for that other stuff.” Liberal’s defensive front is young and not as big as Dalhart, which Litsch hopes will work to Guymon’s favor to get the offense in gear. “Defensively we’ve got to play our tchnique better and don’t give up the easy one,” Litsch said. “Offensively we can’t shoot ourselves in the foot. We’d get something going then we’d have a penalty or fumble. “First and 10 is one thing, first and 15 is another.” Kickoff tomorrow is at 7:30 p.m. The Guymon mini cheerleaders will perform a pre-game show at 7 p.m.
By SHAWN YORKS Sports Editor TYRONE — The Tyrone Bobcats are exactly where they want to be right now. After a slow start in last week’s season-opener at Rolla, Kan., the Bobcat offense kicked into high gear in the second half of a 56-20 win. Now the Bobcats head into the great unknown of Boise City. Unknown because Tyrone head coach Josh Bell doesn’t know much about the Wildcats, who opened with a 33-19 loss to Springfield, Colo. last week. It’s hard to tell what Boise City has based on that game. “It’s hard to gauge just where Boise City is,” Bell said. “Boise City is a tough team and we’ve got to be prepared. They do a lot of play action and run at you.” The story for Tyrone last week was penalties — the Bobcats had 11 — which hurt them in the first half, which ended in a 14-all tie. “Anytime we started to get a drive going we’d kill ourselves,” Bell said. “I guess that was just first-game jitters but it was way more than we expected. We just knew we were the better team on paper, we’ve got the kids to be the better team, but when you constantly hurt yourself, you allow a team to stay in it.” At halftime Bell made some adjustments, and Tyrone dominated the second half. Bell hopes that trend continues tomorrow over in Cimarron County. “It’s going to get tougher and tougher and people are going to start keying on certain kids,” Bell said. “We have to have other kids step up. There’s no reason why we can’t run the ball effectively like that.” Tyler Lai (214 yards) and Travis Shield (340 yards) accounted for the bulk of the offense last week as the Bobcats piled up more than 600 yards total offense — 570 rushing. One of last year’s offensive stars, Colter White, only played defense last week because of a cast on his arm. He was scheduled to get that cast off on Thursday, “So he ought to be back there taking handoffs this week,” Bell said. The key to beating Boise City starts with the defense, Bell said. “We can’t let them muscle us up,” Bell said. “They’re big up front and got some speed. we can’t let them just run over us. “We’ve got to make our reads and come up quick and hit them before they get going. “I think on the defensive side, if we can limit them to a score or two then I feel confident wee’re going to be able to get some points of our own.”
Staff Report HOOKER — The Hooker High School Lady Bulldogs had the Beaver Dusters right where they wanted them. A big 5-run fourth inning gave the Lady Dogs a brief lead. But a routine pop-up that would have been the first out of the inning was dropped, and that led the Dusters to a big inning and, eventually, a 15-5 win Tuesday evening. The loss drops Hooker to 11-10 heading into today’s game at home against Guymon (20-1). “We made three errors in a row that should have gotten us out of the inning,” said head coach Ray Kennedy. “It just snow-balled. “They’re pretty good.” Beaver has changed pitchers since earlier in the season. Katie Rife has taken over in the circle. “She’s not as polished as Guymon’s pitcher, as far as having all the pitches, but she throws hard,” Kennedy said. “She’s a pretty good pitcher.” Hooker had been playing really well, but had a hard time with Beaver. “Walks lead to errors and errors lead to walks and that’s kind of what happened,” Kennedy said. “We need to throw strikes and we need to make plays. One of those two things don’t happen, it’s going to be hard for us.” The Lady Bulldogs play No. 18 (4A) Guymon today with a varsity game at 4:30. The JVs will play next and the varsity’s will wrap things up. “We’ve played Guymon a ton and I think it makes us better,” Kennedy said. “We haven’t beaten them yet but we’ve been playing well against them and I don’t mind that.” —SHAWN YORKS
Staff Report GUYMON — Mariela Rico recorded four kills and a block as the Guymon High School junior varsity volleyball team swept the Stinnett West Texas Lady Comanches 2-0 on Tuesday night at Guymon High School. The Lady Tigers won 26-24, 25-21 as Aubrey Bowers served well for Guymon. KayLea Clark recorded five digs and Bowers nine assists to lead Guymon. —SHAWN YORKS
Guymon Lady Tigers • No. 15 Guymon (11-3) to see first Oklahoma competition coming up this weekend in OKC.
Staff Photo by SHAWN YORKS Guymon sophomore Kate Strickland gets a dig during Tuesday’s contest against Stinnett West Texas in the Guymon High School gym.
By SHAWN YORKS Sports Editor GUYMON — A win is a win, even if it wasn’t exactly the prettiest match ever played. The Guymon High School varsity volleyball team was a little rusty on Tuesday night, but in the end found a way to win, posting a 3-1 victory over Stinnett West Texas. The 18-25, 25-18, 25-19, 25-21 win gives Guymon an 11-3 overall match record heading into this weekend’s Community Christian Tournament in Norman. “I don’t think we were mentally prepared to play in that first set,” said head coach Ty Ware. “West Texas, they came out, they were the aggressor, they served well, they hit well, they moved, and we didn’t. “I felt like it really took us until the third set before we really started moving very well.” The first game of the match was a back-and-forth battle, with 13 ties or lead changes. Guymon led 9-5 and 13-11 and was tied 15-15 before the Lady Comanches pulled away for good, winning 25-18. The second game was much of the same, with eight lead changes before the Lady Tigers ended on a 9-3 run to win it. Tied at 15, an out-of-bounds serve by West Texas gave Guymon the sideout and the lead, which it never relinquished. Guymon led from start to finish in the third game of the match, leading 10-5 at one point before West Texas cut it to within a point twice. Guymon went on an 8-2 run sparked by a monster kill by Vanessa DeWilde. Game four was much like the first two, with the score tied at 13 before WT served it into the net to give Guymon a lead it wouldn’t give up. Myca Hunter served an emphatic ace to end the game and match. DeWilde had nine kills and 13 blocks, Hunter eight kills, Jill Brooks six kills and six blocks, Kalisa Mora 15 assists, Kate Strickland two kills and 10 assists, Charissa Pierce three kills and Lauren Gibson a kill and two blocks. Guymon and Oklahoma City Santa Fe South will be the only public schools in the Community Christian tournament, which is unusual. “All the 5A schools that have been in the tournament historically at CCS, they all dropped out and I had no idea,” Ware said. “Nobody called me and told me that they were not coming back. So now we’re going down as the only 5A.”
