BENTONVILLE — Julia Garrard held her ground not once, but twice in the closing seconds Friday night.
BENTONVILLE 39, ROGERS HERITAGE 37
Heritage 9 10 8 10 — 37
Bentonville 10 12 8 9 — 39
Heritage (17-6, 7-3): Murray 11, Jobst 9, B. Ward 7, A. Ward 6, Lundy 2, Britton 2.
Bentonville (21-2, 9-1): Lee 14, Potts 9, Garrard 8, Mabeus 3, Adkins 3, Secrest 2.
JUNIOR VARSITY SCORE: Bentonville 33, Rogers Heritage 17.
Bentonville’s senior post blocked two game-tying shot attempts, and the Lady Tigers held off Rogers Heritage for a key, 39-37, victory during 7A/6A-West Conference basketball action in Tiger Arena.
“Two big blocks,” Bentonville coach Tom Halbmaier said. “You see that on NBA stuff. She just went in there and did a fantastic job, getting a hand up and getting pieces of the ball.
“One of the things we didn’t want to do was overplay the 3-point shot. After four quarters of play, I figured it was either meant to be or not. Julia was playing off her girl because that was the one throwing the ball in, and that helped out a lot.”
Bentonville (21-2, 9-1 7A/6A-West) owned a 39-32 on Taylor Lee’s layup with 1 minute, 2 seconds left, but Heritage (17-6, 7-3) made it interesting. Ashley Ward scored from inside with 46.8 seconds remaining, then Lacey Murray’s 3-pointer made it 39-37 with 32.3 seconds remaining.
The Lady War Eagles then had their chances to tie or take the lead in the closing seconds, but Garrard had other ideas. She blocked Brittany Ward’s shot out of bounds, giving Heritage another chance with 1.8 seconds remaining.
Heritage then opted to throw the inbounds pass to Ashley Ward in the free-throw lane, but Garrard — who scored six of Bentonville’s first nine points and finished with eight points, 10 rebounds and five and was there again. She got nothing but ball and held on to it as the buzzer sounded.
“We were right there: a two-point game,” Heritage coach Kevin Ramey said. “I thought their kids executed better down the stretch than we did.
“Garrard really played well inside and caused a lot of problems for us. We had some chances, but we couldn’t get them to fall.”
Lee had 14 points to lead Bentonville, whose win coupled with Fayetteville’s victory over Rogers High, gives the Lady Tigers a two-game lead over the two Rogers schools in the league standings with four games remaining. Murray was the only Heritage player in double figures with 11.