By Jeff Johncox
MOORE -- For about 30 seconds, things were going really well for the Moore girls.
The Lions scored the first basket on fourth-ranked Norman High Tuesday night at the Douglass Frederick Sports Complex.
Then it was all Tigers.
NHS scored 31 straight points en route to a 63-23 victory that wasn't even that close, really. None of the Tigers' top seven played in the fourth quarter as Moore got a little something going, winning its only period 10-6.
"It was reminiscent of our loss to Midwest City, where they set the tone early and we could never recover," NHS coach Matilda Mossman said. "I think the same thing happened tonight. We set the tone early and they could never recover. Even when our bench went in in the fourth quarter, they outscored us, but it was 10-6, so it wasn't that big of a deal."
Everything went the Tigers' way.
Moore turned it over 16 times in the first quarter, and NHS led 27-2 after one period. Moore turned it over 32 times in the game, 22 coming before halftime. Seventeen of those 22 were on Tiger steals.
Kamra King scored 16 of her game-high 19 points in the first half and Chelsea Key scored 10 of her 12 before the break. King also had eight of her nine steals in the first half.
Things were going so well for NHS (15-3), that even when Key threw the ball away, right to an official because his black-and-white stripes looked like a black Tiger jersey out of the corner of her eye, the entire bench, including Mossman, had a laugh about it.
By halftime, with NHS up 39-11, the game became more about getting ready for Thursday's Crosstown Clash at Norman North than finishing off the Lions (5-12), though the Tigers expanded their lead to 57-13 going into the final quarter.
"We just needed to get out there and play strong," King said. "We have North coming up. We wanted to go out and get a good win over someone to help our confidence and get us ready for the next one."
Jeannie Ramon added 11 points and led the game in rebounds (eight) and assists (five).
Nine Tigers scored, six more than once.
Megan Dodson led Moore with seven points and seven rebounds and Tara Martini and Jordan Parker each had six points.
Both teams emptied their benches and 24 players had hit the court by the final buzzer.
"I was just happy with the fact that we got to rest people," Mossman said. "We have three games this week. I was just happy to play everybody and rest people."
Moore has another tough test coming up Friday when it travels to tenth-ranked Edmond Memorial.
Jeff Johncox 366-3535 jjohncox@normantranscript.com
