Friday, December 13, 2013
FORT SMITH — What Fort Smith Northside girls basket- ball coach Rickey Smith expected after a 16-day layoff is about what he received Thursday.
Run. Stall. Run. Delay. Run. Tired. Run.
PREP BASKETBALL
FS NORTHSIDE 62,
GREENLAND 27
Greenland 13 5 5 4 — 27 Northside 16 18 16 12 — 62 GREENLAND (6-2): Thompson 8, Crown 7, Riggles 6, Vaughn 4, Rogers 2
FS NORTHSIDE (3-0): Hanson 18, Jackson 11, McDonald 8, Alston 7, J. Myers 6, V. Myers 4, Shephard 3, Hardesty 3, Adams 2, Knight 1
Even in an up-and-down game for the Lady Bears, they had enough to dispatch Class 3A Greenland in the first round of the Deepsnap Tournament of Champions, 62-28.
“Spurts,” Smith said. “You saw us jump out to a 10-0 lead, executed our offense really well, then we relaxed, Greenland got on our nerves, wentonarunandwegot sloppy. But for our fourth game, yeah, I’ll take it.”
Both Northside and Green- land are defending state champions. The Lady Pirates have won each of the last two in 3A. Northside won last year’s 7A title.
But the gap was pretty significant Thursday night.
Greenland trimmed Northside’s 10-0 lead to start the game to just one point after the first posses- sion of the second quarter. It managed just 13 points the rest of the way.
“Bottom line is they’re a 7A school. We’re a 3A school. We played the first quarter 16-13 and I bet people wondered about it,” Green- land coach Alan Barton said. “Cream always rises to the top and we rose to about half-full. But I feel good about our team.”
Northside’s execution was middling. The Lady Bears shot just 38 percent from the field and forced 14 turnovers, about seven fewer than their season average. A lot of that, Smith said, was because of the extended break from games. Northside hadn’t played since beating Fayette- ville in the last week of November.
Even still, Greenland didn’t have an answer for Northside’s depth or Olivia Hanson, who scored a game- high 18 points.
“She’s a great ball player. We talked about her, but you know, she’s going to play college basketball for a reason,” Barton said. “She’s pretty good.”
Greenland pulled within 12 points early in the third after a Jenny Riggles 3-pointer and a Kelsey Vaughn steal and lay-up. But Jill Myers made a 3-pointer, picked up a steal and a free throw, and Hanson put back Myers’ missed free throw to seal the game.
Greenland plays Ozark (Mo.) in the consolation bracket at 4 p.m. today.
Northside will play Midwest City (Okla.) in the second round at 7 p.m.