Basketball: Fort Smith Southside Downs Rogers Heritage

ROGERS -- A couple of second-half lulls were too much for Rogers Heritage to overcome in Saturday's third-place game in the First National Bank of Northwest Arkansas Great 8 Classic.

Fort Smith Southside finished the third quarter with a 13-3 run, then responded with key defensive stops down the stretch to earn a 51-40 win over the Lady War Eagles in King Arena.

First National Bank of NWA

Great 8 Classic

At King Arena, Rogers High

Saturday

Seventh-Place: Rogers High 44, Beebe 39

Fifth-Place: Camdenton, Mo. 54, Ozark, Mo. 50

Third-Place: Fort Smith Southside 51, Rogers Heritage 40

Championship: Greenwood 71, Webb City, Mo. 36

All Tournament Team: Callie King, Rogers High,Whitney Odell, Fort Smith Southside, Sara Giesen, Rogers Heritage, Makensi Taylor, Ozark, Mo., Bailey Rezabek, Camdenton, Mo., Taylor McGraw, Beebe, Desirea Buerge, Lexey Kneib, Webb City, Mo., Megan Hartness, Brittany Branum, Greenwood.

Fort Smith Southside 51, Rogers Heritage 40

Heritage^14^9^7^10^—^40

Southside^14^10^16^11^—^51

Rogers Heritage (4-2): Jobst 20, Giesen 9, Tiles 8, L. Thompson 3.

Fort Smith Southside (2-4): Odell 17, Stone 13, Meares 10, Bishop 4, Hamilton 4, Sharum 2, Hittner 1.

Senior Whitney Odell led the Lady Rebels with 17 points, including seven in the third quarter when Southside (2-4) took control. But juniors Lani Meares (10) and Allison Stone (13) also both reached double figures and contributed in that third-quarter run.

Stone hit a 3-pointer and Meares' three-point play finished an 8-0 spurt for a 35-27 Southside lead with 2 minutes, 52 seconds left in the third quarter.

Heritage coach Kevin Ramey said Southside had more energy than his team in the second half.

"I thought we got kind of flat-footed and they kind kept coming and kept coming and kept coming," Ramey said. "I thought the ball got still. Our execution got stagnant and we didn't get any movement or ball movement.

"We got to 42-36 and we just weren't able to get stops. We weren't tough enough to buckle down."

Southside coach Sherry White, whose team came into the tournament 0-3, said the three-day event helped her team.

"I think we grew up some," White said. "I feel pretty good. It's going to be a process for us. I feel like our defense really has come on. I think we've got to get better of course, but I thought that was our bread and butter over the weekend. I think we build some confidence."

Heritage (4-2) was solid in the first half behind the scoring of senior Emilie Jobst, who finished with a game-high 20 points. No other Heritage player reached double figures.

Jobst's steal and layup in the final minute of the first half pulled the Lady War Eagles within 24-23 at the intermission.

Ramey also admitted his team didn't react well to Southside's zone defense.

"They did a good job defensively and we did do a good job moving people and moving the basketball," Ramey said. "We'll adjust. But the last two days is the first two times we've seen zone and we didn't handle it very well. Our energy level wasn't as high as we would have liked it to be."

Sports on 12/08/2014

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