BENTONVILLE -- The lane between Seth Hawley and the basket was his to take after one simple move.
Fort Smith Southside's senior guard drove and hit a layup just before the buzzer sounded, giving the Rebels a 58-57 victory in 7A-West Conference play over a Bentonville team that played with standout Malik Monk on the bench Thursday night in Tiger Arena.
Girls
Bentonville 67, Fort Smith Southside 38
FS Southside^8^9^11^10^—^38
Bentonville^24^19^17^7^—^67
FS Southside (3-12, 0-1): Sanford 13, Meares 9, Carson 8, Rogers 4, Rainwater 2, Hernandez 2.
Bentonville (12-1, 1-0): Clark 18, Brittain 16, Hernandez 11, Hargus 10, Roberts 5, Johnston 4, Murch 3.
Boys
Fort Smith Southside 58, Bentonville 57
FS Southside^9^16^20^13^—^58
Bentonville^15^12^17^13^—^57
FS Southside (9-6, 1-0): Hawley 17, Releford 14, Sheppard 8, Mahone 7, Smith 6, Hillian 3, West 3.
Bentonville (7-4, 0-1): Robinson 22, Hemphill 10, Constantini 8, Hutchinson 6, Estrada 5, Wallace 3, Jackson 3.
"I think he expected me to go left, so I went with my right -- my weak hand -- and attacked," Hawley said. "My post player posted up for me, and his man was screened. I got an easy bucket. It was well executed by my team."
Bentonville (7-4, 0-1 7A-West) had taken a 55-53 lead on Tyler Robinson's putback after an Aaron Estrada steal, only to have Hawley hit a 3-pointer with 29 seconds left and put Southside (9-6, 1-0) back in front. Robinson, who scored all 22 of his points in the second half, hit another basket inside with 17 seconds left for a 57-56 Bentonville lead.
Hawley took off for the basket, but had the ball stripped away by Jordan Hemphill with 7.1 seconds left. That was enough time for one more chance, and Southside made the most of it, even though Bentonville still had a foul to give without putting the Rebels on the free-throw line.
"Hopefully, this is a big confidence builder for our kids," Southside coach Charles Cooper said. "We had two or three options on that play. The first option was covered, the second option was covered.
"Seth Hawley got the ball and made the play. That's what you've got to do in a game like this."
Bentonville coach Jason McMahan said Monk sat out with three different injuries. His status remains day-to-day for the Tigers' game Saturday against Memphis East in the Penny Hardaway Classic. Bentonville still had a 23-11 lead midway in the second quarter, only to have Southside use a 14-4 run -- including a buzzer-beater putback by Jordan Sheppard -- to cut it to 27-25 at halftime.
"I don't feel like, even if we had won the game, we would have represented ourself well with the way we wanted to play," McMahan said. "There was a lot of self-doubt, team doubt and a lot of that stuff. I didn't like it.
"The instructions at the end were to foul on drives. If they drove, we were supposed to foul. That was the sort of thing I was talking about. It wasn't the high level of execution all night long."
Hawley finished with 17 points to lead Southside, while Zion Releford added 14. Hemphill was the only other Bentonville player in double figures with 10.
Girls
Bentonville 67, Fort Smith Southside 38
Bentonville ended 2015 with its first loss thanks to a scoring slump, but it started the new year and 7A-West play with a bang.
The Lady Tigers scored 24 points in the first quarter -- almost as many as they did in their loss last to Van Buren -- and went on to run away from a young Southside team.
Krista Clark scored 10 of her game-high 18 points in the first quarter as Bentonville (12-1, 1-0) roared to a 24-8 lead, then Madison Brittain scored 14 of her 16 in the second quarter to help the Lady Tigers take a 43-17 halftime lead.
Alexia Hernandez added 11 and Lauren Hargus 10 for the Lady Tigers, while Lauren Sanford had 13 to lead Southside (3-12, 0-1).
Sports on 01/08/2016