4A State Tournament Central: Kingfisher wins title behind masterful performance
After a classic 4A state championship game last year between Heritage Hall and Kingfisher, the two teams met again for the same prize. After Heritage Hall pulled out a narrow victory in the first meeting, Kingfisher came with a masterful gameplan to defeat the defending champions handily the second time around, 59-39.
Kingfisher found a way to shut down Heritage Hall’s sophomore phenom Trey Alexander while smothering the rest of the Chargers offensively and defensively with their talented core of Jett Sternberger, Bijan Cortes, Trey Green, and Matthew Stone.
From start to finish Kingfisher was the better team and Heritage Hall had a challenging time trying to fight through their torturous defense and stop their balanced attack on offense. Sternberger, Cortes, Green, and Stone combined for 48 of the teams 59 points on 15-of-31 shooting.
No, Kingfisher certainly didn’t shoot well as a team at only 36.8 percent but holding Heritage to 23.5 percent shooting and 14.3 percent from the field definitely made up for that. Actually, the most notable reason why Kingfisher’s win was so lopsided was due to them holding Alexander, Jack Spanier, and William McDonald to 26 points on 7-of-29 shooting from the field. Those are the Chargers key players and they were visibly flustered during the entire game.
Class 4A is talented but it looks like Kingfisher and Heritage Hall will be at the top of the class for years to come. Kingfisher’s Cortes and Stone are sophomores while Heritage’s Alexander is a sophomore and Spanier is a junior.
Kingfisher ended the 2018-2019 season with a (28-1) record and Heritage Hall ended their season (28-1) as well.