Roff's defense makes statement Tuesday night

Bob Forrest Sports Writer

Dalen Qualls has accomplished so much in his basketball career that it’s easy to forget he is just barely into his third season at Stratford High School.

Qualls, whose father, Mark, has been the Bulldogs’ head coach since before most of his current players were born and whose older brother, Garan, graduated in 2007 as one of the highest-scoring players in school history, has been the gold standard for small-school players in Oklahoma since Keiton Page left Pawnee for Oklahoma State and Rotnei Clarke left Verdigris for the University of Arkansas in the spring of 2008 after rewriting the state’s scoring record book.

In his first two-plus varsity seasons, Dalen has scored more points than any Oklahoma player ever, including Page and Clarke. He averaged more than 35 points per game as a freshman and sophomore and has been a lot more than just a scorer, routinely approaching — and sometimes achieving — triple-doubles in a combination of points, rebounds, assists and steals.

And through the first five games of his junior season, Qualls had been as good as ever. He entered Tuesday’s showdown with Class B No. 1 Roff averaging about 38 points per game, with a high of 47 and a low of 32 (in a win over previously unbeaten Elmore City-Pernell in which Stratford scored only 57 points). Coming off an unexpected state tournament run last March, the Bulldogs had also lived up to their No. 3 preseason ranking in Class A by averaging almost 100 points per outing and posting five straight double-digit victories.

His obvious talent has understandably made Qualls the focus of every opposing defense since he first stepped onto the floor as a freshman, and in most cases he and his dad had figured out a way to solve the puzzles other coaches had thrown at them. The job had become easier since the start of 2009, when a couple of other budding stars — Tommy Lawson and Matthew Knight — had emerged to add some balance to the Stratford attack.

But Tuesday night — which began with such high hopes — turned into a riddle without an answer for Mark and Dalen Qualls and for the Bulldogs.

Roff coach Kale Simon came up with a perfect defensive game plan that, in a perfect world for every coach outside Garvin County, could become the model for stopping Qualls and Co. in the future — that is, if those coaches can come up with six fanatics willing to sell out on defense the way Dayne Parker, Aaron Cornell, Brendan McCurry, Dylan Lemley, Blake Logan and Brendon Barr did Tuesday.

A look at the bare numbers from Roff’s surprisingly easy 63-42 victory tells an amazing story of a team that eagerly bought what its young coach was selling in the days leading up to the first-ever showdown between two teams from this area ranked as high as the Tigers and Bulldogs. Stratford took 58 shots — almost every one contested — and hit just 14; the Bulldogs were a staggering 0-for-23 from beyond the arc, including 14 misses from Qualls; and, despite holding the Tigers to 20 field goals in 62 attempts and grabbing 47 rebounds (including 12 from Lawson and nine from Qualls), the Bulldogs’ vaunted fast break accounted for a total of ONE basket (and that one was after a steal).

“We talked before the game about not allowing our opponent to be more ready than we were,” Simon said. “We came out and were ready to play from the start.”

With a hand in his face or a body on him for pretty much the entire 32 minutes, Qualls missed his first 13 shots (12 in a first half that ended with Roff up 37-19), and he was 1-for-20 before hitting two of his first three attempts in the fourth quarter. His third basket of the night — a running one-hander in the lane with 6:40 to play — trimmed what had been a 21-point deficit early in the second half to 46-35 and gave the Stratford faithful in the standing-room-only crowd some hope.

But the second of two questional technical fouls against the Bulldogs less than a minute later — this one against Dalen after Mark Qualls had been hit with one in the first quarter — led to four straight McCurry free throws to cap a 7-0 run that finally sealed the win for Roff.

On a night when three of his teammates (McCurry, Parker and Lemley) scored in double figures, Cornell missed his only five shots and didn’t score a point. For four quarters, though, he was one of the most valuable players on the floor.

Roff’s senior point guard, Cornell has established himself as one of the state’s best small-school defensive players over the past two seasons. He said he and his teammates took particular pride in their domination of an offense that had been one of the most productive in Oklahoma through the first two weeks of December.

“We have four guys who can shut down just about anybody,” said Cornell, who had five of Roff’s 10 steals and also grabbed five of the Tigers’ 50 rebounds Tuesday. “We just kept fresh legs on Qualls all night.

“After the game, if Qualls had scored 30 points, he was still a legend at Stratford,” he noted. “If we held him to 15 or 20 and won the game, they wouldn’t be talking about Qualls, they would be talking about the way we played defense. We were trying to make that statement.”

Playing in big games is nothing new to Cornell and his teammates. In addition to reaching five state basketball tournaments in six years, the Tigers have been in the state championship game in baseball in either Class A or Class B seven times (fall and spring) since the spring of 2006, winning championships in Class A in 2006 and in Class B in the spring and fall this year.

Cornell, a starter for three years in basketball and four years in baseball (where he has been one of Oklahoma’s most versatile players), said that despite the star power on this year’s Roff basketball squad (which improved to 10-0 with Tuesday’s win and, other than the state tournament last March, hasn’t lost a game in more than year), the team chemistry has been outstanding.

“It’s hard to pick out who’s your best friend,” he said. “We all hang out together. It’s basically like we’re all brothers. Everyone respects everybody else’s abilities.”

Cornell said Simon’s coaching style keeps everybody on the team both grounded and focused.

“He demands a lot of respect from us,” he said of Simon, who took his first two Roff teams to the Class B state tournament. “It’s exciting to play for him, because he’s young and understands our train of thought.

“He thinks of creative ways to make us enjoy playing defense,” Cornell added. “He knows our personal buttons — he knows what gets you going.”

Kale Simon is the younger brother of veteran Roff baseball coach Ead Simon, and Cornell said that, although the sports are different, there are a lot of similarities in their coaching styles.

“There’s not a lot of difference,” he explained. “They both expect a lot and they get a lot out of us. There’s not much change when you go from baseball to basketball, except you go from tennis shoes to cleats.”

Cornell and his teammates realize they have a chance to grab a piece of history this season by making Roff the first Oklahoma school to win state championships in basketball and fall and spring baseball in the same school year. But despite the fact the Tigers are a solid favorite to play for — and win — a gold ball in March and will be an even bigger favorite to capture their third spring baseball title in six years next May, he said they don’t plan to ruin a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by simply expecting to win all three championships.

“It’s there, but we can’t look ahead,” he said. “I think that was Red Oak’s problem (the Eagles won championships in fall baseball in 2008 and basketball in 2009 before losing to the Class B baseball crown to Roff last May). They looked ahead and said they were going to do what hadn’t been done, and it bit them in the butt. We still talk about it, but we know we still have to play.”

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