ROGERS — Springdale Har-Ber girls basketball coach Sandy Wright said she had a little talk about consistency with sophomore Bailey Schalk before Friday night’s game.
SPRINGDALE HAR-BER 53, ROGERS HERITAGE 48
Har-Ber 19 7 11 16 — 53
Heritage 14 9 9 16 — 48
Springdale Har-Ber (13-10, 8-4): Schalk 27, Neal 10, Wright 7, Redmond 5, Weber 3, Gray 1.
Rogers Heritage (18-7, 8-4): Murray 20, A. Ward 9, B. Ward 8, Lundy 4, Giesen 4, Jobst 3.
Junior Varsity score: Springdale Har-Ber 45, Rogers Heritage 22.
It sure seemed to work as the 5-foot-10 sophomore poured in a game-high 27 points to lead the Lady Wildcats to a huge 53-48 7A/6A-West Conference win over Rogers Heritage at War Eagle Arena.
“I had to give her a little ‘let’s pick it up’ speech,” Wright said. “I told her before the game we’re a little gimped up still. We need a big night out of you.
“She’s not been real consistent and I had to talk to her about that. But she responded.”
The win pushed Har-Ber (13-10, 8-4 7A/6A-West) into a three-way tie for second in the league standings with Rogers High and Heritage with two games to play in the regular season.
“This is a huge win for our school,” Wright said. “Now all of sudden we were looking at fourth, but now we could be second.”
Schalk and 5-10 senior Tayleah Neal combined to give the smaller Lady War Eagles fits most of the night inside the paint. Neal was also in double figures with 10.
Har-Ber ended the third quarter with a 9-0 spurt with Schalk scoring all nine to turn a four-point deficit into a five-point lead.
Heritage (18-7, 8-4) pulled within two a stickback by Sara Giesen with 1 minute, 17 seconds left, but Schalk came up big again. The sophomore rebounded a missed free throw by a teammate and put it back in to push Har-Ber’ s lead back to five.
Heritage coach Kevin Ramey acknowledged Har-Ber was the stronger, more physical team Friday night, particularly Schalk.
“The first time we played them she didn’t score much, but she was extremely active tonight,” Ramey said. “Bottom line, it came down to physicalness and toughness. Her and Neal were way more physical and tougher than we were.”
Lacey Murray led Heritage with 20 points, including six 3-pointers, and was the only Lady War Eagle in double figures.