LITTLE ROCK — Central girls top Searcy
Michael Green was not expecting a masterpiece, but the Little Rock Central girls coach got what he wanted.
Junior guard Taylor Lewis hit 4 of 7 three-pointers and finished with a gamehigh 20 points in Friday’s 48-36 road victory at Searcy.
When the two teams met on Jan. 4, Central cruised to a 58-30 victory over the Lady Lions.
“We were coming off big victories over North Little Rock and Cabot, so I was expecting a little bit of a letdown,” Green said.
“Let’s just chalk it up to that.It was one of those games where I just wanted to get in there, get the win and get it over with.”
The victory was Central’s 10th in a row. The Lady Tigers (16-4, 8-0 7A-6A-East) now hold a two-game lead over North Little Rock and West Memphis with six conference games remaining.
“Searcy played much better at their place, and I knew that they would,” Green said. “Their post girl [6-4 junior Angelina Williams] played really well. ... I mean, it was what it was. We just did what we had to do to win.”
Arkansas State signee Jamie Ruffins had 6 points, 6 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 steals. Freshman Alaysia Ready scored 9 points, hitting 7 of 8 free throws.
NORTH LITTLE ROCK BOYS Unheralded ’Cats
North Little Rock is ranked No. 18 (up from No.
20) in the latest MaxPreps Xcellent25 rankings. The Charging Wildcats (19-1, 8-0) have won 18 games in a row and are averaging more than 78 points per game.
And while seniors Dayshawn Watkins and Thomas Alexander and sophomore Kevaughn Allen are receiving the majority of the attention, North Little Rock Coach Johnny Rice said his team’s role players are doing more than their fair share of the work, citing the efforts of seniors T.J. Francis and Gary Vines in Friday’s 67-32 victory over Cabot.
“T.J. is a guy who brings energy to the court every time he plays,” Rice said.
“He plays one speed and that’s fast. Sometimes he plays too fast. Sometimes heplays so fast, he can’t finish.
But if I think we’re not playing fast enough, I put him in and he will. And if we’re already playing fast, he’s not going to slow us down.”
Francis scored all 16 of his points in the second and third quarters in Friday’s victory. Vines scored only 2 points, but he contributed 4 rebounds, 3 steals and 3 assists.
“People look at us and see Thomas and Dayshawn and Kevaughn, but they don’t think of Gary Vines and they should,” Rice said.
“When you consider how many rebounds he gets for us, it’s unreal. We also put him on the other teams’ best player.” HUGHES BOYS On the rebound
Junior Kevin Burgess scored a team-high 17 points in Hughes’ 58-47 2A-6 Conference-clinching victory over Carlisle on Thursday night.
Burgess’ main job, however, is rebounding, according Hughes Coach Thomas Foster.
“He’s been doing it all year for us,” Foster said of Burgess. “He’s our MVP because he gets after it. I expect Kevin to carry us.
He’s a rebound specialist. ... He’s averaging somewhere between 12 and 15 rebounds [per game] for us. He’s only scoring about 10 points a game for us, but that’s not what we’re asking him to do.”
Burgess grabbed 13 rebounds Thursday, including seven on the offensive end.
Hughes led by 16 points before Carlisle rallied to within six in the fourth quarter.
Foster said Carlisle grabbed his team’s attention when the Bison upset Clarendon a week earlier. Clarendon finished second in the 2A-6 race.
“Our kids know when they come [to Carlisle], it’s going to be a tough game,” Foster said. “They play well on their home court, and the key for us has always been how well we match their intensity.”
Hughes, which suffered a 59-38 loss to Earle on Friday, is 18-10 overall.
NLR/CABOT GIRLS
Struggling to score
For the first 28 minutes of Friday’s 7A/6A-East Conference girls game between Cabot and North Little Rock, the teams combined for 45 points. In the last eight minutes - the final four minutes of the fourth quarter and in the fourminute overtime - the two teams scored a combined 47 points.
“I thought we played really good defense, but we didn’t shoot very well,” Cabot Coach Carla Crowder said. “They didn’t shoot very well either.”
“I guess the difference was that we got to the freethrow line a little quicker than they did,” North Little Rock Coach Daryl Fimple said. “We finally made a few of them at the end.”
In a battle between second-place teams, North Little Rock finally emerged with a 50-40 overtime victory. The game were tied 13-13 at the half. North Little Rock led 17-16 after three quarters.
“It’s just one of those games where we both know what each other does well,” Fimple said. “They went to a zone and you would have thought we had never seen it before. ... We had opportunity after opportunity and there were times where we couldn’t even dribble it down the floor.”
It was also a game where neither team wanted to gamble defensively.
“They took away our strength and we took away theirs,” Crowder said. “Neither team got a lot of transition baskets and that’s something we’ve really worked on.”
North Little Rock sophomore Malica Monk led her team, scoring seven of her 20 points in the extra period. Cabot’s Elliot Taylorscored 11 of her 13 points in the fourth quarter and overtime.
North Little Rock made 25 of 41 free throws after a 2 of 8 start. The Lady Charging Wildcats were 12 of 15 from the line in overtime.
Cabot was 17 of 27 from the line, including a 4-of-7 effort in overtime.
CARLISLE GIRLS Got to have Faith
Carlisle’s girls claimed the 2A-6 Conference title Thursday night, thanks to a 22-point, 12-rebound performance from junior post player Faith Walker in a 61-36 victory over Hughes.
“She’s been playing well the last couple of games,” Carlisle Coach Jonathan Buffalo said of Walker. “She’s good under the basket, plus she can step out and hit a jump shot or two.”
A month earlier, Carlisle (16-7, 12-2) had suffered an overtime loss at Hughes.
“I wouldn’t say we expected to win the conference title, but I can tell you that winning the conference was one of our goals we set for ourselves when we started the season,” Buffalo said.
“We knew we had to work hard to get it. We haven’t won one since 2008-2009.” RURAL SPECIAL GIRLS
Consistent Plummer
Zowey Plummer passed the 1,700-point mark for her career in Rural Special’s 75-68 loss to Midland on Friday night.
Plummer scored 39 points in the contest. The senior is averaging 24.1 points and 13.9 rebounds per game and has had at least 20 points and 10 rebounds in 26 of the Lady Rebels’ 29 games this season.
Sports, Pages 25 on 02/03/2013