It wasn’t the sharpest outing, but Malvern still found a way to grab a key road victory against one of its fierce rivals.

Junior guard Raven Baker scored 12 points, including back-to-back three-pointers during a third-quarter spurt, to help the Lady Leopards pull out a 46-38 victory over Central Arkansas Christian in a key 4A-7 conference game Thursday night.

“It’s always a close, competitive game when we play CAC,” Malvern Coach Jess Martin said. “Both teams know each other so well, and it’s always kind of a chess match.

“It just so happened that we were able to make a few more moves in this one.”

Tieris Smith scored 10 points and grabbed five rebounds while Alivia Huell had seven points and 12 rebounds for Malvern (17-2, 10-0), which extended its winning streak to 10 and has won 23 of its last 24 conference games.

Falan Miller led CAC (16-4, 8-2) with 16 points.

Both Malvern, the top ranked team in Class 4A, and CAC had to overcome a bit of adversity early on. Malvern guard Tiffany Murdock, one of the team’s top players, was plagued by foul trouble for much of the game. The senior picked up her third foul early in the second quarter and had to sit for the remainder of the half and the majority of the third quarter. Also, CAC’s Sydnie Jones, the Lady Mustangs’ 6-1 center, watched most of the first half from the sidelines because of foul trouble as well.

The Lady Leopards, however, were the ones who took advantage. When Murdock went out, Martin inserted Smith, his 6-3 center who was able to throw over the much smaller Lady Mustangs.

“That was the big key for us,” Martin said. “She was able to get the ball, go straight up and score. That gave us a really big boost.”

Smith scored all of her points during the second quarter, with her final two ending a 10-2 run that turned a 13-9 deficit into a 19-15 lead.

Malvern held a 21-20 lead at the half and extended its cushion to as many as eight in the third quarter behind Baker’s hot shooting, but still had to fend off a pair of CAC spurts in the fourth quarter to put the game away.

Sports, Pages 19 on 02/07/2014