By Derek Brown
Daily Elk Citian

The Elkettes had flashbacks flooding back on Friday night.

The Pioneer Center hosted the third meeting this season against Clinton and Elk City. This matchup had a similar feel of the second meeting between these two teams.

The game was never out of reach for each team but the Clinton Lady Red Tornadoes had an offensive run late that determined the winner.

The Elkettes held a 41-38 with 13.4 seconds left to play. Clinton's Haley Adams made a clutch 3-pointer to tie up the game and send it into overtime.

In the overtime period the Elkettes were able to win the tip and take the lead converting on their first bucket. The Lady Red Tornadoes were able to outscore the Elkettes 17-6 in the overtime period without having two of their leading scorers on the court. Laci Williams, and Jennifer Williams fouled out of the game in the fourth quarter. Clinton has now beaten Elk City three times, this one the Lady Red Tornadoes took home a 58-47 win.

"They just had player after player, after player go down and hit shot, after shot, after shot. All of a sudden I look up and instead of us being up two were down five. Then we started to panic after that," said Garrette Mantle, Elk City head coach. "This is a hard pill to swallow because we're just a couple of free throw makes away from getting a four-point lead and taking it over."

The Elkettes fall to 3-13 as Clinton rises to 4-11 on the season.

The Elkettes left seven points off of the scoreboard by going 14 of 21 from the charity stripe.

"We're 14 of 21 which isn't bad. We just missed some key free throws late," said Mantle.

Mikayla Harrison poured in 21 points to lead the game. Erin Hutchinson was two rebounds shy of a double-double having scored 10 points and pulling down eight boards.

"Mikayla is just a tremendous competitor. You can tell it really hurt her for us to not win that," said Mantle. "Both of them played good."

BOYS

When the game looked as though it was clearly Clinton's game, the Elks battled back.

The Big Elks trailed 44-33 after three quarters but tied it up at 57-57 with 43.5 seconds left after Luke Lewallen hit a two-pointer.

The Elks could not stop Clinton's Stefon Williams with 10 seconds left to play from taking a 59-57 lead. The Big Elk's last chance of tying the game was just off of the front rim after Lewallen attempted a 3-pointer after it bounced off of the backboard.

"It looked like it was over," said Mantle. "You could see that we were a little deflated, a little distraught. I really didn't know whether we'd battle back and get after it. But we did."

The Big Elks had 14 turnovers while they forced Clinton to cough up the ball just five times.

"I just think throughout the whole night and throughout this whole year we've just had a ton of unforced turnovers," said Mantle. "We just had a lot of unforced errors. I thought that was the difference in the game."

The Big Elks are now 1-2 against the Clinton Red Tornadoes. Elk City falls to 7-9 as Clinton moves up to 9-6.

"They've got a pretty dad-gum good team. But we gave ourselves a chance and it didn't work out for us," said Mantle.

Lewallen led the Elks with 20 points and pulled down 10 rebounds for a double-double. Joby Gray scored 19 points from shooting 6-13 from the floor and 2 of 4 from beyond the arc.

"We got good point production out of them and then we got a tid bit here and there. Then we had quite a few people play a lot of minutes that are flatlined offensively and their [Clinton’s] scoring was quite a bit more balanced," said Mantle.

Clinton's Williams scored 21 points and went 10-18 from the hardwood. Ben Perez chipped in 17 in the Red Tornadoes' win.

"The thing about Williams is that he scored around the basket but he hit two or three shots from about 15-foot, we haven't seen that. That makes him really hard to guard," said Mantle. "That makes them hard to guard if they can make baskets from the perimeter. When they can make shots from the perimeter and they've got the big interior game they've got they're hard to guard."