CONWAY — Taylor Strickland and Sydney Striplin saved the West girls from a pair of records they really didn’t want to own Thursday night.
Scoring was hard to come by during the final three quarters of the Arkansas High School All-Star Girls basketball game, but the East found enough points to take a 57-47 victory at the Farris Center.
Neither team shot very well, but the West tried to use perimeter shooting to negate the East’s marked height advantage. That didn’t work as the West managed only 3 of 27 from 3-point range among its 19 of 62 shooting.
“They had gigantic posts,” West coach Charles Berry of Huntsville said. “It was hard for us to shoot in the paint. We didn’t shoot good, and they are a very talented bunch.
“We knew we would have a hard time on the boards. We thought we had to hit some trifectos, and we didn’t do a very good job.”
Strickland, the former Rogers High standout and the West’s outstanding camper, helped the West avoid the lowest point total by a team when her bucket with 4 minutes, 31 seconds remaining made it a 48-44 game. The East then scored the next seven points to pull away before Striplin’s 3-pointer at the 1:03 mark, keeping the game from being the fi rst not to reach the century mark for combined points.
Strickland, who has signed with Missouri-Kansas City, scored all five of her points in the second half and helped the West stay close during that period. She did all her work inside after missing all four of her attempts from 3-point range.
“Once I saw that my outside shot wasn’t falling, I had to do something different,” she said. “So I went inside and fi nished my layups. Coach Preston Early taught me well.”
Taylor Lee, a former Bentonville standout who signed with John Brown, came out firing from the moment she took the floor in the second quarter. She missed her first attempt but nailed the second and finished the game with four points.
She and Danielle Frachiseur of Wickes were instrumental in leading the West on a 13-7 run during their seven-minute stretch, turning a six-point deficit into an 18-16 lead. The East, however, started the third quarter with 12 straight points and took a 28-18 lead on a bucket by Brittany Fowler of Buffalo Island Central with 3:18 before halftime.
“I was ready to go as soon as I got out there,” Lee said. “I was off most of the game, but I was feeling it at fi rst.
“With a limited amount of playing time, it was hard to go in there and do something without being a ball hog. As much as we shared the basketball, it was hard to get something for yourself.”
Calli White of Fort Smith Southside, who will be Strickland’s teammate at UMKC, led the East with 10 points and was named the game’s most valuable player. Mary Crow of Bauxite and Kamera Bozeman of Watson Chapel each had 10 points for the West.
West 5 13 10 8 11 — 47 East 11 5 17 8 16 — 57 WEST: Franklin 1, Crow 10,
Strickland 5, Striplin 3, Davis 2,
Mullins 2, Lee 4, Scott 2, Frachiseur 8, Bozeman 10.
EAST: Caldwell 4, Fowler 2,
Skidmore 5, Jackson 4, White 10,
Willard 5, Flowers 2, Coffey 6, Kapler 4, Logan 6, Harris 1, Herrell 2, Weber 6.