Conference Play Under Way

Regional standings games began last Thursday night as Northwest Arkansas Conference basketball teams enter the meat of their respective schedules.

Springdale Central and Springdale George were especially busy, playing on four nights as they had regularly scheduled Monday and Thursday games on top of tournament play in Huntsville on Tuesday and Friday.

The Wranglers (3-6, 1-0) opened up conference play with an important 34-31 victory over Rogers High at home on Thursday.

“It’s always nice to start conference play 1-0,” George coach Jeremy Price said. “I was proud of our kids’ ability to battle and win a game that was close late. This past week, we’ve tried to put our focus on getting better each day and it paid off. We must continue to have great practices and improve at all phases of the game. There’s too many good teams in this league to take a day off.”

George’s Lady Wranglers are young and inexperienced this season, but that’s not stopping coach Valeri Parson from getting the most out of her girls, especially in a hard-fought conference opening loss last Thursday to Rogers High.

“Our girls played hard and were right there with them in the first half,” Parson said. “We had a rough third quarter and that was very difficult for us to come back from. Our youth was exposed a little bit.”

Both of George’s top players are underclassmen, according to Parson.

“Myae Mason, a seventh- grader, was our leading scorer the other night with 26 points,” Parson said. “Mekenna Taylor, an eighth-grader, did a great job defending Rogers’ best player. The girls never quit and fought hard. We are a very young team but we are getting better every game.”

Central’s girls (5-6, 0-1) are definitely going to enjoy going back a regular schedule this week after playing four games in six days last week.

“It has been very busy,” Central coach Sheila Neal said. “Our conference opener with Black was a hard-fought game. They finished when they had to and we had a hard time getting the ball inside. We’re looking forward to playing Gold tonight.”

Springdale Lakeside, meanwhile, is in its inaugural season of varsity play, and coach Kyle Pennington’s Golden Eagles (5-5, 1-0) opened up with a resounding 24-point victory at home over Rogers Heritage.

“I thought we played really well on our home court,” Pennington said. “Now we’re going to see if we can be road warriors. We’ve got a tremendous challenge playing at Rogers and facing coach (Gerald) Walsh. He does a great job up there.”

Justin Smith is leading Lakeside in scoring with 14 points per game, while Zach Peck, a 6-foot-3 eighth grader, is doing the same on the boards.

“Oscar Iraheta has been our defensive stopper, and Kenyatte Garrison has done a really nice job the last four or five games of stepping up offensively,” Pennington said. “He’s a really good athlete.”

Fayetteville Ramay was the only school that didn’t 
open conference play on Thursday.

Upcoming Events