FAYETTEVILLE — Fayetteville’s defense proved too much for Rogers High Friday night.
Fayetteville shut down the top scorer in the 7A/6A-West Conference and sophomore Sydney Crockett led a balanced Lady Bulldogs’ scoring effort to defeat the Lady Mounties 31-29.
FAYETTEVILLE 31, ROGERS HIGH 29
Rogers 9 8 6 6 — 29
Fayetteville 5 13 11 2 — 31
Rogers (16-8, 7-3): Strickland 13, Ganoung 7, James 4, Warren 4, Trexler 1.
Fayetteville (9-14, 5-5): Crockett 10, Breden 6, Edie 4, Moore 4, Schuldt 2, Howard 2, Prude 2, Austin 1.
Rogers senior Taylor Strickland entered the game averaging a league 23 points in conference games but she was held to 13 points on 3-of-15 shooting. Strickland missed a layup while battling a double team with four seconds left that would have sent the game to overtime.
That final play was typical of the Lady Bulldogs’ defensive effort on Strickland.
“Taylor is such a good player, and there is no one in our league that can guard her one-on-one,” Fayetteville coach Vic Rimmer said. “We wanted to limit her touches. When she did touch it, we doubled her. We did a good job of not fouling her and putting her on the line.’’
Fayetteville only scored a pair of free throws the final 8 minutes, 19 seconds of the game, but it was enough after a late third period spurt. Crockett scored five points the final 1:31 of the third period and Aubrey Edie added a stickback to give the Lady Bulldogs a 29-23 lead.
McKinzie James cut the Fayetteville (9-14, 5-5) lead to 31-29 with 14.7 seconds left but the Lady Mounties couldn’t force overtime as time ran out. Rogers was just 8-of-33 from the field and 1-of-5 from 3-point range.
“It was such a struggle,” Rogers coach Preston Early said. “We missed shots that we had been making. We just struggled with everything.”
Crockett led Fayetteville with 10 points on 4-of-9 shooting. Sophomore Ellie Breden added six points while Edie and Caylea Moore added four points each.
“All of our sophomores are on the verge of being very good players,” Rimmer said. “They are starting to figure out what they can and can’t do, offensively and defensively. Sydney had a big night, she made some huge baskets for us.”
Rogers (16-8, 7-3) had an 11-5 lead early in the second period but Fayetteville went to its press and forced three turnovers during a 9-0 run for a 18-13 lead. They would never trail the rest of the way.
“That run was just enough,” Rimmer said.