Bulldogs push it to finish

Saturday, December 15, 2012

— DaShaun Stark stepped to the free-throw line Friday night and appeared relaxed despite the pressure of the situation.

It didn’t matter that the Springdale forward hadn’t made a basket since a fastbreak dunk in the opening minutes of the second quarter.

Stark made all four of his free throws in the final two minutes against Benton, giving Springdale just enough breathing room to escape with a 61-56 victory in Bulldog Gymnasium.

“Sometimes you feel like late in the game that’s when you’ve got to be the aggressor and get to the free-throw line,” Springdale Coach Brad Stamps said. “That’s what we want to do.

“We want to shoot more free throws than our opponent every night.”

The Bulldogs (5-4) played the role of the aggressor from the opening possession as they blocked shots in the lane and scored in transition to jump out to a 17-7 lead in the first quarter.

Guard Tereke Eckwood scored six of his team-high 20 points in the first quarter, though the 5-9 sophomore asserted himself even more in the second half as Benton (8-1) used its size in the lane to mount a comeback.

Eckwood had 10 points in the third quarter, and he seemed to counter every time Benton forward Josh Bowling made a shot around the basket. Bowling finished with a game-high 27 points, including 17 after halftime.

“The first quarter sunk us, 17-7. After that I thought we played pretty well,” Benton Coach Chris Nail said. “We just did not contain [Eckwood] and [Alex Scharlau] tonight.

“Defensively, that’s what killed us.”

Scharlau finished with 12 points, and the Bulldogs turned to another senior in Stark down the stretch to seal the victory. He made a pair of free throws with 1:54 remaining to give Springdale a 57-54 lead.

After Bowling scored on a putback with 55 seconds left to pull the Panthers within one point, Stark made two more free throws to give the Bulldogs a three-point lead.

From there, it was just a matter of Springdale playing aggressive defense for one more possession.

Stark finished with eight points, all but two of them coming from the free-throw line.

“We want to be solid on defense, and as soon as we possess it we want to push the ball,” Stamps said. “We’ve got some guys that can do some things in transition.

“I thought the first quarter, after we settled in a little bit, we played really well and ran lanes and found people.”

Sports, Pages 24 on 12/15/2012