Prep basketball report

Prep basketball report

5A-West Conference

First-place showdown

Farmington jumped out to an an early lead in the 5A-West Conference girls' race with wins in its first two league games. A home loss against Greenbrier in the first varsity game at Cardinal Arena dropped the Lady Cardinals from the top of the standings, but Friday will present a chance to return to first place.

Farmington (15-3, 5-1) visits Vilonia (16-3, 6-0) in a battle between the No. 1 and No. 2 teams in the conference standings. For the Lady Cardinals, the showdown could be coming at the perfect time. Farmington has won three consecutive games against Clarksville, Little Rock Christian and most recently a 62-48 home win against Morrilton on Tuesday. Tahlon and Tayton Hopkins continue to provide an inside-outside punch, and Kristi Duchanois also complements the balanced attack on offense.

Vilonia just survived its latest game, a 52-47 double overtime win at Little Rock Christian on Tuesday. But the Lady Eagles are a strong contender for a Class 5A title this year after advancing to the state semifinals last season.

"Everybody in this league is tough," Farmington girls coach Brad Johnson said. "There's not a break on any night and we've just got to keep getting better."

-- Vernon Tarver • @NWAVernon

4A-1 Conference

Gentry coming on strong

Gentry coach Tim Fulks is using biological tactics to throw the 4A-1 girls race into turmoil.

"The kids are finally starting to understand the amoeba defense," Fulks said.

What is an amoeba defense, you ask?

"It's really a match-up man defense," Fulks said. "A lot of people call it a zone, but really it's man. We match up to whatever offense the other team is running, whether it's 1-3-1, 1-2-2, or whatever."

Fulks, who is in his second season at Gentry, coming from Bald Knob, said it's taken a while for the players to grasp the concept. He said he could see the light bulb start to come on right around the holiday break.

"It's been a big learning curve, but the past two weeks you could see them getting it," Fulks said. "It takes 2-3 years to fully grasp it and understand what we're doing. We've got our junior high running it, too."

The Lady Pioneers (7-10, 4-5 4A-1) used the defense to pull off the biggest upset in conference play on Tuesday, routing league-leading Berryville 59-37. Gentry will try and do it again on Friday when it hosts Huntsville (18-4, 8-1).

Tuesday's win was a 50-point turnaround from the first time Gentry played Berryville.

"I hope we're peaking at the right time," Fulks said. "We had Berryville frustrated from bump to buzzer. Hopefully we can do it again Friday."

-- Chip Souza • @NWAChip

3A-1 West Conference

Mansfield hitting its stride

Mansfield boys basketball coach Keith Dake admitted his team was searching for an identity early in the season.

The Tigers (13-8, 6-2 3A-1 West) are coming together though, putting together four consecutive wins to surge to the top of the standings. Mansfield is a half-game up on West Fork and Lavaca and a full game ahead of Haas Hall.

Dake, who served as senior girls coach at Mansfield last year, said his team also had to get used to him some, too.

"They lost their two leading scorers off last year's team," Dake said. "Part of our struggles is we're trying figure out our identity and them having a new coach. Several of our players are also football kids and we didn't get them until November and we played six or seven days later.

"But we've hit January and we've hit a little bit of a stride.

One example is the Tigers lost by 12 to West Fork in the Decatur Tournament, but turned the tables a couple weeks ago to pick up a 12-point victory.

Post man Dallas Morgan (6-2, 245) leads the team in scoring averaging around 16 points per game, but he's been especially big lately, Dake said.

"He's hit a spree right here with double-doubles three games in a row," Dake said. "He's a guy who played quite a bit last year, but did not play basketball as a sophomore."

Mansfield travels to Cedarville on Friday.

-- Paul Boyd • @NWAPaulB

2A-4 Conference

Johnson County Westside rolling

Johnson County Westside is hosing the Class 2A North Regional and the Lady Rebels are on course to earn a berth in the regional no matter what happens at the 2A-4 District Tournament

The Lady Rebels (19-4, 10-0) have a two-game lead over Hackett and Mountainburg with just four league games left to play. Johnson County Westside defeated Hartford 64-36 Tuesday night and they travel to Union Christian Friday. The top two teams during the regular season earn automatic bids to the regional.

The Lady Rebels played a difficult nonconference schedule that included wins over Elkins (8), Paris (3), Gentry (20) and Conway Christian (20). One of their losses is to Van Buren.

"It's a great advantage to host a regional," said Westside coach Steve Golden. "I try to make our nonconference schedule as tough as possible."

The Lady Rebels are averaging 58 points a game but only McKenna Mainard is averaging in double figures with 11.7 points a game. Four players -- Marlee Stepp (9.9), Ashlyn Strickland (8.2), Delanei Hurt (7.8) and Breanne Morrow (5.1) -- are adding five points or more a game.

Stepp made 6 of 11 3-point attempts against Hartford and she is shooting 39 percent from 3-point range. Mainard has 57 3-pointers on the year.

"Any of my top six, seven girls can be our go-to girl on any given night," Golden said. "That is what makes them so successful."

-- Paul Nielsen @NWAPaul

Independents

Special night

Providence Academy's senior night Friday may have a little more meaning than most.

The Patriots will honor seniors Mitchell Guthrie, Garrett Greenway and Seth Box before the game.

Guthrie and Greenway have started most of the year in the backcourt. But more importantly, the duo was part of the group of players who were around for the start of the program six years ago when they were in seventh grade.

"Our program has gotten pretty big and competitive, high-level all of the sudden," Providence coach Austin Bivens said. "They stuck with it. And now they're on a really good team. A lot of credit goes to them for getting a guy like (standout) S.K. (Shittu from Nigeria)."

Providence has won three of its last four games, including finishing third at a Jay, Okla., tournament and beating a solid NOAH team out of Tulsa, Okla.

-- Jimmy Carter • @NWAJimmy

Sports on 01/29/2015