7A/6 A-CENTRAL

Beat-up LR Hall toughs it out

Fort Smith Southside forward CJ Moore (33) battles with Little Rock Hall’s Drelane Walters (left) for a rebound during the Rebels’ 54-37 loss to the Warriors on Friday in Little Rock.
Fort Smith Southside forward CJ Moore (33) battles with Little Rock Hall’s Drelane Walters (left) for a rebound during the Rebels’ 54-37 loss to the Warriors on Friday in Little Rock.

A short-handed Little Rock Hall team was still too much for Fort Smith Southside to handle Friday night.

The Warriors used an 11-0 run late in the first quarter to take control and weathered a number of second-half rallies by the Rebels to ease to a 54-37 victory to open up 7A/6A Central play at George Cirks Arena.

“We’ll take them any way we can get them at this point,” Hall Coach Jon Coleman said. “We came back from Christmas break a little beat up, and we were missing two key people in this one. Because of that we had to expand other people’s roles, but I thought the guys stepped up as a whole and handled themselves well.”

The Warriors had 10 players score, with Gregg Easter leading the way with 11 points. Antonio Edwards had nine points and nine rebounds, while Dayton Artis and Zack McFadden had eight points each.

Hall (9-3, 1-0) played without one of its leading scorers, Kaylon Tappin, a senior guard who suffered a high ankle sprain during a post-Christmas tournament and was held out of Friday’s game. It isn’t known when Tappin will be able to return.

“For the most part, the guys did what we asked them to do,” he said. “Nolan Richardson used to say that when you build a monster you have to feed it, and we’re trying to feed it.

“Defensively we played well because we never want to give up more than 40 points, but we’ve got to get better. That’s the bottom line. Guys are going to have to pick up the pace and step up for us to continue to be successful.”

Hall trailed 8-4 early in the first quarter before scoring 11 points to grab a lead it wouldn’t relinquish for the rest of the game. The Warriors eventually pushed their lead to 12 in the second quarter, but the Rebels didn’t shy away despite constant defensive pressure applied by Hall.

Alex Foree had back-to back baskets in the period, with his 17-footer pulling the Rebels to within 21-16 before the Warriors rallied to take a 27-18 lead into halftime.

Southside (3-9, 0-1) continued to whittle away at Hall’s lead and pulled to within 32-28 midway through the third quarter on Chris Moore’s put back with 1:26 remaining, but consecutive layups by Eric Daily and Drelane Walters gave the Warriors enough of a cushion to hold off the Rebels.

Foree scored 11 points to lead the Rebels, who finished with 19 turnovers. Kenneth Ray added nine.

Sports, Pages 22 on 01/11/2014

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