Huber Leads Lady Tigers In Regional Rout

— The shots weren’t falling early for Prairie Grove’s girls during the early stage of Thursday’s game against Dardanelle, but coach Kevin Froud was nowhere near panic mode.

PRAIRIE GROVE 51, DARDANELLE 23

Dardanelle 3 5 8 7 — 23

Prairie Grove 10 15 12 14 — 51

Dardanelle: Cunningham 16, Duncan 3, Farris 2, Tregle 2.

Prairie Grove (24-4): Huber 20, Kultgen 9, Beeks 8, Fitts 6, T. Hartin 3, M. Martin 3, Robinson 2.

It was just a matter of time. Once the shots started falling, the Lady Tigers were in full control.

Justyne Huber scored 10 points during a 17-0 run in the first half, and Prairie Grove advanced to the Class 4A-North Region Tournament semifinals with a 51-23 victory.

Class 4A North Region Tournament

at Maumelle

GIRLS

Thursday’s Results

Game 1: No. 1 Prairie Grove 51, No. 4 Dardanelle 23

Game 2: No. 1 Dover vs. No. 4 Gentry, (n)

Today’s Games

Game 3: No. 2 Maumelle vs. No. 3 Ozark, 4 p.m.

Game 4: No. 2 Farmington vs. No. 3 Pottsville, 7 p.m.

Saturday’s Games

Game 5: Prairie Grove vs. Winner Game 3, 2 p.m.

Game 6: Winner Game 2 vs. Winner Game 4, 5 p.m.

Monday’s Games

“We finally got some shots to fall, and it’s something I talked to my girls about,” Froud said. “I told them the only consistent thing about basketball is play hard, play good defense and rebound.

“That’s what we try to do, and the offense will come. Justyne got hot, and we were able to get into our transition game. Everything worked out good.”

EDITOR’S NOTE: Because of an early deadline, results of Thursday’s late girls game between Dover and Gentry can be found at www.nwaonline.com

Prairie Grove (24-4) forced eight turnovers and held Dardanelle to just one field goal in the first quarter, then allowed Kortlin Cunningham to score the Lady Sand Lizards’ only points through the first three quarters. The Lady Tigers, however, only had a 6-3 lead when Huber erupted.

The senior forward and Arkansas-Fort Smith signee scored the last four points of the first quarter and extended Prairie Grove’s lead to a 10-3 margin. The Lady Tigers then added 11 more points for a 23-3 cushion on Lacey Beeks’ bucket before Cunningham hit a 3-pointer with 1 minute, 49 seconds before halftime. ending a Dardanelle scoring drought of more than 9 minutes.

“It took us a while to get used to those goals,” Huber said. “We didn’t get to practice (Wednesday), then we didn’t get to shoot that long on them.

“It was a little tense at first, but after we ran a little bit, the shots started falling.”

The only thing Prairie Grove didn’t go was force the sportsmanship rule. The Lady Tigers’ lead grew to 28 points when Beeks’ layup made it 44-16 with 6:39 remaining but didn’t get any higher.

Huber finished with 20 points to lead Prairie Grove, which advances to a 2 p.m. game Saturday against today’s winner between Ozark and Pottsville and earns a berth in next week’s Class 4A State Tournament in Cave City. Cunningham finished with 16 for Dardanelle, which entered regional play as the fourth seed from the 4A-4 District.

Consolation Round

Game 7: Loser Game 4 vs. Loser Game 5, TBD

Championship

Game 8: Winner Game 5 vs. Winner Game 6, TBD

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