FAYETTEVILLE — With a possible 7A-West Conference championship on the line, Fayetteville wasted little time taking care of business Saturday.
The Lady Bulldogs, one game behind Fort Smith Northside in the conference standings before Saturday’s matchup, scored the game’s first 12 points and stayed in control behind 22 points from Calli Berna in a 61-44 victory against the Lady Bears in Bulldog Gymnasium.
The victory leaves Fayetteville tied with Northside at 11-1 in the 7A-West, but it gives the Lady Bulldogs the tiebreaker edge over the Lady Bears based on the teams’ head-to-head margin of victory.
“You judge the quality of your wins by the quality of your opponents, and if you want to see how good you are, just go play Northside,” Fayetteville Coach Bobby Smith said. “Obviously this game meant a lot, but more than that I just thought both teams were very physical, and I can’t say enough about how physical we were.”
Northside (23-3, 11-1) missed its first six field-goal attempts and trailed 15-2 with 2 minutes, 16 seconds left in the first quarter before finally making a shot from the floor. After pulling to within 18-8 at the end of the first quarter, the Lady Bears turned to Mannesha Bell inside the paint to rally to within 25-19 at the half.
Bell, who finished with 14 points and 11 rebounds, scored seven points in the second quarter alone as Northside took advantage of a cold shooting spell by Fayetteville to pull close.
“I told our kids at half that you knew this was going to be a battle,” Smith said. “ Northside is just too good. But I thought a big part of the game was when [senior guard] Clair Childers got two quick fouls and we had to sit her on the bench the rest of the half. That kind of got us out of rhythm there for a while.”
Northside wouldn’t stay close for long after intermission, though. With Childers back in the lineup and Fayetteville at full steam, a 12-4 run over the next six minutes - highlighted by Berna’s third three-pointer of the game - put the game out of reach.
NORTHSIDE (44) Bell 14, Church 12, Terry 8, Rogers 4, Blocker 3, Myers 3.
FAYETTEVILLE (61) Berna 22, Clay 9, Conley 8, McHenry 8, Childers 6, Matlock 5, Breden 3.
Northside ................ 8 11 9 16 - 44 Fayetteville ............ 18 7 12 24 - 61 Boys
FORT SMITH NORTHSIDE 72, FAYETTEVILLE 68
Fort Smith Northside won for the sixth consecutive time, but it had to hold off a Fayetteville rally to keep the streak alive.
The Grizzlies, behind sharp shooting from Josh Benard and Biton Triplett, built a 25-15 lead after one quarter and extended the lead to as much as 16 points before halftime.
But led by the inside pair of Malik Fields and Tyler McCullough, who combined for 37 points, the Bulldogs pulled to within six points by intermission and eventuality tied the game at 56-56 with 6:27 to play before a late Northside push made the difference in the end.
“We fought back and got tied, but they just kept scoring,” Fayetteville Coach Kyle Adams said. “We just couldn’t stop them enough, and it seems like everybody they put on the floor can shoot the three. That’s what makes them so tough.”
DuShawn Rice led the Grizzlies (14-12, 9-3) with 18 points, all of it comingin the second half.
“We let Fayetteville come back on us a little bit, but our guards did a good job of making sure they never got ahead,” Northside Coach Eric Burnett said. “Du-Shawn hit some shots, and really if you look at it, we got scoring from all over the place, and that helped.” NORTHSIDE (72) Rice 18, Benard 15, M. Stevenson 9, Triplett 9, Jones 9, White 8, B. Stevenson 4.
FAYETTEVILLE (68) Fields 19, McCullough 18, Paschke 14, Allen 7, Graves 6, Arnold 4.
Northside ............... 25 14 17 16 - 72 Fayetteville ............ 15 18 18 17 - 68
Sports, Pages 32 on 02/20/2011