MUSTANG – Though a buzzer-beater by Mustang's Jacinto Biorato gave the Broncos a one-point win over El Reno High School's boys basketball team, EHS head coach Rodney Haydon was pleased with his team's effort.
“I was totally pleased with all our scrimmages,” Haydon said. “Lawton MacArthur is a rated team ahead of us and Mustang and Lawton are ranked in the top 20 in 6A.
“I thought we would have trouble getting the ball up the court and scoring in the half-court sets, but we didn't and I was happy with the way we performed.”
El Reno had three scrimmages last week, splitting four 10-minute periods with the Highlanders – ranked No. 13 in the 5A preseason poll.
The Indians beat Lawton, ranked 13th in 6A, in two periods by scores of 20-2 and 13-8. El Reno took on the Broncos in three periods, winning the first 16-8 before losing the second by an 18-9 margin.
“Mustang is a good team and they have all their kids from football,” Haydon said. “We opened up with them and beat them. I think Mustang took a little bit of chewing from their coach and they were a little more focused and handed it to us in that second quarter.”
In the third period with the Broncos, El Reno set up baskets from Jose Bonilla, Terry Hubbard and two from Chris Mustain off defensive rebounds.
Connor Haydon broke an 8-all tie with a 3-pointer with 2:20 to play. Mustang countered with two free throws with 7.4 seconds to play to close the gap to one.
El Reno then turned the ball over when Mustain tried to dribble out of the corner on an inbound play. The Broncos passed the ball around for the final shot, but Biorato misplayed the pass before picking up the ball and chunking in the game-winning shot in the 12-11 decision.
“We played a great quarter. We played a matchup zone and did everything well, we just did not finish. All you're going to remember is that we played great for three and a half quarters and then got beat in the end. I was really frustrated when that happened because that was a big quarter for us. I wanted to see how we responded against them,” Haydon said.
For the five periods, Mustain scored a team-leading 23 points, followed by Chris Rednose with 11 points and seven from Terry Hubbard. Bonilla ended with five points, while Jordan Macias, Blaine Owens and Haydon had three each and two from Anthony Plentybears.
“We've got to find some scoring besides our top two,” Haydon said. “We've got to have some other guys step up and knock some shots down. We've had plenty of opportunities and those guys need to take advantage of those chances.”