Springdale Har-Ber girls basketball coach Sandy Wright went into Friday’s season-opening conference game wanting to rest Bailey Schalk some since the junior is playing with a nagging back injury.
Wright couldn’t afford to rest her.
“In December, she came down wrong, and we’re keeping a real close eye on her,” Wright said. “I think I took her out one time on Friday. I went into the game thinking that I needed to watch her and rest her here and there. It was the type of game that we really needed her, and she was doing OK. She’s not 100 percent, and I’m praying she stays healthy.”
Schalk nailed two free throws with four seconds left to lift the Lady Wildcats to a 55-54 win against Siloam Springs.
Schalk is this season’s first 7A/6A-West Conference Girls Player of the Week.
The two crucial free throws capped a 16-point performance for Schalk, whose free throws came after the Lady Wildcats had missed five of six from the free-throw line in the final 40 seconds.
“I was glad to have somebody else up there,” Wright said. “She had to hit the first one to tie it and then hit the second one to win.”
Schalk was the third leading returning scorer in the conference at 11.4 points per game from a year ago, and also the team’s top returning scorer.
“She averaged about 12 points a game last year, but she was inconsistent,” Wright said. “She had a good year, but she’s matured a lot. She’s growing up and getting ready for that 7A ball and that level and the pressure. She has the weight on her shoulders. Last year, we had some seniors that could carry it. She knows it’s on there this year. She’s our go-to person.”
MONK IMPRESSES EARLY
Malik Monk moved to Bentonville in July, and seven months later he helped lead the Tigers to a nice conference-opening 51-46 win Friday at Van Buren.
Monk scored 15 of his 23 points in the second half and helped Bentonville rally from a late deficit to earn the 7A/6A-West Conference Boys Player of the Week honor.
Van Buren led 44-43 with 1 minute, 31 seconds left after a 3-pointer by Quashaun Kursh, but 10 seconds later Monk drove to the basket and converted a bucket to put Bentonville up for good at 45-44.
“He made big plays in the clutch in the game especially after they took the lead,” Bentonville boys basketball coach Jason McMahan said.
With 58 seconds left, Monk again drove to the basket, scored and was fouled by Van Buren’s 6-foot-7 Mitchell Smith on a play in which Van Buren coach Randy Loyd really wanted a charge call. Monk converted the three-point play with a free throw for a 48-44 lead.
“It was a drive to the rim,” McMahan said. “Randy thought it was a charge, and I thought it was a block. They called it a block, and he finished it. It was one of those plays.”
The game pitted a pair of the best sophomores in the state against each other, and two of the preseason favorites in the conference. It added up to a huge crowd to Clair Bates Arena on Friday night.
“It was a huge atmosphere,” McMahan said. “It was probably 200 people away from being packed. There was a big atmosphere and really great crowd. It was a great game to start league play with.”
It was also big for Bentonville to start off with a road win.
“To start off with a win down there is just hard to describe,” McMahan said. “It was a big one.”
ROAD DEFENSE
Basketball coaches love those defensive sayings, but they are all true and Bentonville won its conference opener with defense.
“It was good to win with our defense on the road,” McMahan said. “With all those coaching mantras, you know, defense doesn’t take a night off. If we go down there and don’t shoot very well, or they throw some strange stuff at you, you need the defense to be there, and it was. That was big for us.”
In addition to scoring 17 points, Jake Caudle also clamped down on Ryan Pearson by limiting the returning all-state guard to just five points.
“He did a good job of holding Pearson to five points,” McMahan said. “He had a one minute, 40 second break and other than that he guarded him all night. We felt like’s how we won the game was with our defense.”
With Monk and Tyrik Dixon garnering most of the attention, Caudle’s 17 points were a career high and a big offensive boost for the Tigers on Friday night.
“It wasn’t a surprise to us,” McMahan said. “It may have been to Van Buren.”
TIP-INS
Bentonville’s Peyton Taylor had a rare perfect night shooting the ball, sinking all five field-goal attempts and both free-throw tries for 12 points as well as grabbing nine rebounds in a 48-27 win at Van Buren. … The Springdale High Bulldogs drilled 10 of 23 from 3-point range in a 67-49 win at Rogers on Friday after hitting just 8-of-45 3-point attempts in the final four nonconference games. … In boys play on Friday, Fayetteville, Bentonville and Springdale all recorded road wins. … Fayetteville and Bentonville were girls teams that won on the road, giving road teams a nice 5-3 mark on the first night of conference play. … The Bentonville Lady Tigers used a 13-0 scoring run in the second quarter to propel them to the 48-27 win at Van Buren.