BENTONVILLE -- Bentonville High's girls started their season with an 11-0 run, and Gravette managed to survive it Tuesday night.
The Lady Lions weren't as fortunate the second time the Lady Tigers put together a double-digit outburst.
Bentonville went on a 10-0 run and put its lead into double digits for good en route to a 65-30 victory in the season opener for both teams in Tiger Arena.
"The girls did a nice job of starting out pretty quickly," Bentonville coach Tom Halbmaier said. "They had pretty good focus to start the game, then it tapered off a little bit.
"I thought our bench brought a lot of energy, and I thought our top five did a good job of setting the tone."
Four different Bentonville players scored over the first 3 minutes in its initial run and caused Gravette coach Will Pittman to burn his pair of 30-second timeouts. The Lady Lions (0-1) bounced back and did get within five on a couple of occasions, the last coming when Kaylan Chilton hit four straight free throws and made it a 15-10 game with 52.1 seconds left in the first quarter.
Bentonville (1-0), however, scored the next 10 points and extended its lead to 25-10 after a Kylie Hayes bucket with 6:42 before halftime. The Lady Tigers led 32-19 at halftime, then blew the game open when they outscored Gravette 21-5 in the third quarter, with Natalie Smith hitting a 3-pointer as the buzzer sounded and making it a 48-24 game.
"Once we spotted them that 11-0 lead, it was tough," Pittman said. "I thought after that, we played the first half pretty good. We had a 13-point deficit at halftime, and we just didn't play with the intensity we needed in the second half against a quality team.
"I saw a lot of good teams out of my kids. We'll build and get better. We needed a game under our belts against somebody this good."
Avery Hughes had 15 points and Maryam Dauda 12 for Bentonville, which returns to action Thursday at Russellville. Chilton had 10 points and was the only Gravette player in double figures.
Preps Sports on 11/14/2018