Little Rock Christian didn't play as well as Coach Austin Trembley would have liked against Clarksville on Friday night, but he didn't see much cause for concern afterward.
Isaiah Harper finished with 18 points, 11 rebounds and 5 steals as the Warriors used a spirited second half to beat Clarksville 53-45 at Warrior Gymnasium.
Justice Hill scored 12 points and Drew Smith had 11 for Little Rock Christian (13-7, 6-2 5A-West), which scored 12 of the first 19 points of the third quarter to pull away after being tied 15-15 at halftime. Damarea Crockett added eight points and six rebounds for the Warriors.
Juan Hernandez scored 21 points and grabbed seven rebounds for Clarksville (7-14, 1-7), which has lost five games in a row and seven of its past eight. Lucas Wood had nine.
"Any time you can win when you don't play well is big," Trembley said. "Harper is our Energizer Bunny. He's going to always play hard and did a little bit of everything [Friday]."
The Warriors shot 21 of 55 for the game and outrebounded the Panthers 35-27. Clarksville finished 16 of 56 from the floor but benefited ted from Little Rock Christian's slow start to keep the game close.
"We didn't play as well as we would have liked, but a win is a win is a win," Trembley said. "For some reason, we were just really sluggish.
"And as a coaching staff, we were excited about this game. But we missed some shots that we normally make in the first quarter, and I think it kind of got into our heads."
The Warriors misfired on 10 of their first 11 shots and never seemed to get into much of a rhythm offensively in the first half. They shot just 6 of 26 in the half and turned the ball over 10 times, with Trembley attributing much of his team's struggles to Clarksville's ability to switch things up defensively.
"Like I told the guys, you've got to give credit to [Clarksville]," he said. "They really packed it in on us and made things pretty tough on us. It was one of those where we kind of labored all night really, but we were able to play much better in the second half."
Little Rock Christian began attacking the Panthers' zone more aggressively in the third quarter and used a 12-1 run midway through the quarter to keep Clarksville at bay.
Sports on 02/06/2016