DUNCANVILLE, Texas — Coach Larry Goad and the DeSoto (Texas) Lady Eagles basketball team’s worst fears about playing a well-coached team began to ring true midway through the third quarter of Wednesday’s game against Fayetteville.
DeSoto edged the Fayetteville Lady’Dogs 50-47 in the semifinal game of the silver consolation bracket of the Sandra Meadows Classic, but Fayetteville had its moments during its second loss of the season after its 42-game win streak was snapped Tuesday.
DeSoto (16-5) played in a tournament in Fort Smith a few weeks ago and heard all about the defending Arkansas Class 7A state champions.
“We were just told they were loaded,” Goad said. “‘Good luck playing them.’ They were fundamentally sound against us. God, they’re so well coached.”
Wednesday’s game presented Fayetteville (11-2) a DeSoto team that played an up-tempo style and utilized a full-court press defense that left the Lady’Dogs struggling to find open shots.
The high-pressure defense paid off for the Lady Eagles with a 14-10 first quarter advantage. That lead grew to 10 points by halftime and DeSoto held a 13-point advantage midway through the third quarter, 36-23.
Facing its biggest deficit of the tournament, Fayetteville coach Bobby Smith’s adjustments got the Lady’Dogs back into the game.
“We made a couple of adjustments with alignment to get balanced against the pressure,” Smith said. “But the biggest thing is we just made shots.”
Fayetteville roared back with a 3 1/2-minute, 10-2 run led by Sierra Shipley, to cut the lead to 40-33, but DeSoto added four more points in the final minute of the third quarter.
Fayetteville’s Calli Berna answered DeSoto with seven of Fayetteville’s next 10 points as the Lady’Dogs began the fourth quarter with another 10-2 run and cut DeSoto’s lead to just one point with 3 minutes to play.
From that point, however, Fayetteville failed to score until the final 6 seconds of the game.
DeSoto’s Chasity Taylor hit a 3-pointer with three minutes left to give the Lady Eagles some breathing room and two late DeSoto free throws sealed the deal.
Fayetteville failed to defend their title at the Sandra Meadows Classic, but Smith said despite leaving the Texas tournament without honors, his squad’s new experiences will pay off down the road.
“We got to see a wide variety of really talented teams,” Smith said. “We got to see some of the things that we’re doing great, and got a great, great image on the things we need to work on and things we might need to add to make us as good as we can be.”