FARMINGTON — Chase Garner and his Farmington teammates took a physical brand of basketball to a big and strong bunch from Berryville.
But it took more than just one round of knockdowns for the Cardinals to deliver the final blow against the Bobcats on Tuesday in a 53-46 win in 4A-1 Conference action.
Garner, often the centerpiece of the Cardinals’ offensive attack, scored nine points in the first quarter and 17 of his game-high 19 points by halftime to help build a 10-point lead.
The Bobcats then turned up the defense and slowed down Garner the rest of the way, taking a 40-39 lead into the fourth quarter before Farmington (18-4, 10-1 4A-1) returned to its physical play to pull away down to stretch.
“We’re an above average team when we play through (Garner) in the middle,” Farmington boys basketball coach Beau Thompson said. “When we play through him, they’ve got to provide help on him, and that gives us lanes to crash the boards. So when we work through him, we’ve got a chance to win games.
“But I thought they played really well in the first and third quarters, and we played really well in the second and fourth quarters and we did a good job of hitting free throws down the stretch. That was the only difference in the game.”
Berryville (13-10, 4-7) trailed 33-23 at half before limiting Farmington to just two field goals in the third quarter. The Bobcats forced five turnovers in the period and got a running jumper from Donnie Hoppe with 2.1 seconds left in the third to take a 40-39 lead.
Berryville still led 41-39 with 5 minutes, 20 seconds remaining before a 9-1 Farmington run in the next four minutes turned the game the other way.
“We really played a great third quarter and took the lead, but maybe we used up too much energy,” Berryville coach Brent Compton said. “But our kids gave themselves a chance to compete. This is the best team in the league, and to come here at their place and compete like that is something we can build off of.”
Farmington hosts Lincoln on Friday, and Berryville hosts Pea Ridge.
Berryville 17 6 17 6 — 46
Farmington 21 12 6 14 — 53
Berryville (13-10, 4-7): Hoppe 13, Porter 12, Morrell 12, Lehr 5, Monley 2, Carr 2.
Farmington (18-4, 10-1): Garner 19, Dellett 12, Mueller 10, Brackett 9, Steven 3.
Girls
Farmington 58, Berryville 43
The Lady Cardinals jumped out to an early lead and quickly shook out any hangover from Friday’s upset loss to Gravette, posting an easy win.
Haley Maxwell led all scorers with 19 points, and Rene Scheyder added 14.
“We knew we would shoot the basketball a lot better, even after last Friday,” Farmington coach Brad Johnson said. “And we were not going to let that one game define us. I told the kids, great teams are often defined by how they respond to adversity or failure. The league was going to be watching to see how we came out after the loss, and I thought did a good job in preparation leading up to this game and we came out shot the basketball well.”
Berryville 7 8 13 15 — 43
Farmington 17 13 15 13 — 58
Berryville (14-9, 4-7): Johnson 15, Ale. Smith 11, B. Smith 11, Noble 2, Ali Smith 2, Ruiz 2.
Farmington (18-5, 9-2): Maxwell 19, Scheyder 14, Duchanois 11, Scales 6, Blackburn 5, Sigmon 2, Garcia 1.