BENTONVILLE — The downside of having a young basketball team is the mistakes that come with inexperience.
It was a tough lesson Bentonville’s girls were forced to learn Friday night as the Lady Tigers dropped a 68-54 decision to Greenwood during nonconference action in Tiger Arena.
Bentonville (4-2) suff ered 19 turnovers en route to suff ering back-to-back losses for the fi rst time since the 2011-12 season. Many of them came when the Lady Tigers attempted to keep the game close after the two teams had eight lead changes through the opening 16 minutes.
“A lot of it was sophomore mistakes,” Lady Tigers coach Tom Halbmaier said. “We have some sophomores in there, and made some turnovers. We’ve just got to weather the storm.
“We have to do a better job of taking care of the ball.”
Not everything Bentonville suffered, though, was self-inflicted. Lundon Williams gave the Lady Tigers plenty of other problems, connecting on 7 on 11 from 3-point range and finishing with a game-high 30 points.
The 5-foot-6 guard hit 3-pointers on consecutive trips to the court after Bentonville had pulled made it a 35-33 game on Peyton Taylor’s bucket with 4 minutes, 45 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Greenwood (5-1) went on to extend its lead to 51-43 at the end of the third quarter and slowly continued to pull away.
“It was a good game during the first half, but the tempo was kind of slow,” Greenwood coach Clay Reeves said. “We’ve played both, depending on how we’re playing, but I felt like we needed to use more players and get the ball up and down the fl oor.
“We just used more players and forced the tempo. It worked out to our advantage.”
BOYS
BENTONVILLE 77, GREENWOOD 50
Malik Monk scored 13 of his game-high 27 points in the second quarter, fueling a 34-9 run as Bentonville claimed its second win this season over Greenwood.
Tyrik Dixon scored six straight points in the second quarter and helped the Tigers (3-1) stretch a 16-9 first-quarter cushion into double digits before Monk took over. Bentonville held a 50-18 halftime cushion and led by as many as 40 points late in the third quarter.
Dixon was the only other Tiger in double figures with 11. Ryan Lensing had 16 points and Logan Hollinsaid 12 for Greenwood (1-3).
Bentonville returns to action at 5 p.m. today when it takes on Little Rock Hall in the Arkansas Hoops Challenge at Maumelle High School.