BY CHARLES CHANEy

EL DORADO, Kansas — With Santa in attendance, the Butler Grizzly defense put on a show. 

The Grizzlies held Colby, who had already matched their win total from last season to a season low, in a 69-34 win on Wednesday night in the Power Plant.

The win improves Butler to 9-2 on the year and 4-2 in conference. 

“Really happy [with the game],” Butler head coach Mike Helmer said. “I’ve been disappointed with us defensively. It’s not our typical defensive teams, and we really, really practice that the last couple days, and really honed in on what we need to fix defensively.

“We were really, really good tonight, especially first half.”

Yeah, they were. 

Butler held Colby to only four made buckets in the first half and forced 16 turnovers. They hounded the Trojans made their 5-hour trip from Northwest Kansas a difficult one. 

They pressed early and it saw a big impact for Butler. 

“Our press in the first half really caused it,” Helmer said. “We were going to go back to it in the third quarter but we were already in foul trouble but our defense kept us around.”

“Our defense gave us a chance to get going offensively. Then, we had a nice little stretch there where we hit some shots.”

Freshman Mya Mayberry was able to get the Grizzlies started early as they jumped out to a 7-0 run before Colby (8-5, 3-4) finally got started. The Wichita Heights superstar tried to jump start the offense, hitting an early three and getting to the line. 

“My trust level with her is just growing and growing and growing,” Helmer said. “There was a couple times I looked at the coaches like, I need to get her a quick break here and then I just saw the way the game was going and the way she was commanding the game. She did the best job that she’s done since she’s been a Butler

Teammate Ashley Singhateh agreed. 

“We can trust her with the ball,” she said. “When she has the ball in her hands, I feel fine running away and leaving her with it because I know she’ll make something happen, whether for her or somebody else.”

Mayberry credited her teammates.

“It’s just being on the same page as my teammates,” she said. “That really just helps me a lot throughout the whole game, just knowing everybody’s spot and their roles.” 

By the end of the quarter, Butler had pushed their lead to double digits behind Maize South freshman Ashley Singhateh, scoring six straight points. A single digit lead had ballooned to 14 by the end of the first frame. 

The defense had forced 16 first half turnovers, helping Butler overcome their shooting woes and put some space between them and the upstart Trojans. 

Keegan Yarick hit a 3-pointer with 5:37 remaining until half as Butler was able to push their lead out to 27-8. The Grizzlies were able to push their lead out to above 20 shortly after when Lara Lucia hit her only three of the game, putting Butler ahead 30-10. 

The Grizzlies led 34-10 at the break.

Butler’s defense held Colby without a bucket for more than nine minutes, spanning the second and third quarters. During that time, Butler was able to push their lead into the stratosphere. They would eventually hold Colby to only one bucket over the next 15 minutes. It was nearly 45 minutes of real time between Trojan buckets. 

“That’s my favorite stat of the year,” Helmer said with a smile. “We just literally talked about it We said, can we, you know, who’s got finals left? And we had five of them with finals; let’s take our time these next three days, not have something slip up here and finish strong.”

Butler has done it primarily with local kids, with six student-athletes on the roster from the Wichita area. It’s the most he’s had on the squad since 2017-18 season. 

“It’s just how the roster fell this year,” Helmer admitted. “We liked what was in the area this year and we’re already zeroing in on some for next year.”

Almost every Wichita area student-athlete is a big contributor to the Girzzlies’ season. Whether it’s Destiny Smith, hitting 3s or May Mayberry running the offense. Then, you have Singhateh demanding so much attention, it’s pulling solo coverage onto her teammates and providing a pick-your-poison scenarios for the Grizzlies. 

“We’ve been playing summer ball with them before,” Singhateh said. “It’s kind of a familiar team for me.”

Mayberry said it’s helped their chemistry. 

“I feel like since we’ve all kind of played together before and  seen each other play, or just even playing against each other, I feel like it’s helped our chemistry,” she said.

It was a bit of homecoming for Colby head coach Darin Spence as he coached the Grizzlies for five seasons, helping build a foundation to the very successful program that coach Helmer has developed into a nationally recognized program. 

“It gave me my start in the Jayhawk,” he said. 

During his five years in El Dorado, Spence amassed 117 wins and two Jayhawk west titles. 

“We weren’t as blessed with a lot of things as they are now, but the program has grown,” he said. “For me starting to build that back then it makes me feel good to see that it’s still going.”

He said back then, they weren’t allowed to wear anything other than the team colors. No black jerseys or anything ‘fancy.’

“We had the bright yellow jerseys and were forbidden to wear black,” he said. “I remember one year I ordered all the brightest yellow practice jerseys you could get before the fluorescent colors came around.”

He bought his first house off Ohio Street, leaving El Dorado making indelible marks on his life during his time here. 

“My two oldest daughters were itty bitty,” he said. “My son, who is now 27 was there and played a year at Cowley under Eric (Nitsche) when he was an assistant at Cowley.”

Spence has been all around the country, including coaching at the Division I level. He’s now in his second year, building Colby up from a team who won only one game two years ago. 

“This is my 33rd year as a college coach, 40th overall, I’ve had a good run at it,” he said. “I got a lot more in the tank. Now, we’re trying to build something at Colby.”

Spence said he remembers during his time current athletic director, Todd Carter, was just the athletic trainer at the time. 

“That was a whole lifetime ago,” he said.

The Grizzlies now turn their attention to Indy, who is at the bottom of the conference this season. The Grizzlies will be lasered focus heading into Saturday’s semester finale. 

“We owe Indy for getting this last year,” Helmer said. “We got to go down and take care of that and then everybody can go on a break and get away from each other for 8-10 days.”

“Then, we’ll right back at it.”