BENTONVILLE -- Tom Halbmaier was ready to see whether his Bentonville girls team would bounce back one night after a blowout loss to Fort Smith Northside.
Maryam Dauda responded by setting a school single-game scoring record, and the Lady Tigers held off Conway to claim a 76-68 victory Friday night over the Lady Wampus Cats in the Malik Monk Classic.
Dauda, Bentonville's 6-4 junior post, finished with 36 points to break the previous record of 34 set by Avery Hughes in a 2017 game against Greenwood.
"I was really pleased with our effort," Halbmaier said. "I thought they were really connected defensively, created some mismatch issues and got a lot of deflections in the half court. That led to some easy buckets for us.
"But Conway is a very good team. They made runs. We would get them down 10 or 12 points and boom, they go 8-0 real quick. Fortunately, we hit some free throws down the stretch."
Bentonville (6-1) entered the fourth quarter with a 56-42 lead, but Conway (7-2) pulled within 64-59 after a bucket by Savannah Scott, a 6-3 freshman post, with just under four minutes remaining. Eight unanswered points were capped by Rebecca Boone's three-pointer with 1:31 remaining to pull Conway within 68-66.
The Lady Tigers held off the challenge by going 8 of 8 at the free-throw line over the last 1:21.
"I'm so proud of how they battled," Conway Coach Ashley Hutchcraft said. "When you have two freshmen, one sophomore and really one senior that has varsity experience, you can't be more pleased with the effort they brought throughout the game.
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"They made some runs all throughout the game, and we always answered with a big shot or a defensive stop. I think, for us, we'll get better through the year because of our youth, so this is something we can build off of."
Dauda scored six quick points as Bentonville bolted to a 12-0 lead, and all five starters had scored at least once by the time the Lady Tigers had a 17-4 lead with 2:59 left in the first quarter. Conway answered with a 13-2 run to close out the quarter and make it a 19-17 game.
But the Lady Wampus Cats couldn't slow down Dauda, who scored 12 points in the second quarter to help Bentonville extend its lead to 39-27 at halftime. She added 10 more points in the third quarter, and Heidi Baum's free throw with 6.5 seconds left gave the Lady Tigers their 56-42 lead, the biggest of the game.
"Maryam helped out a lot," Halbmaier said. "With her scoring 36 points, that took a lot of pressure off of us. Then Bella Irlenborn did a great job of anchoring that back-side defense and getting rebounds. She really, really worked hard."
Jaiden Thomas had 21 points to lead three Conway players in double figures, followed by Chloe Clardy with 14 and Jadah Pickens with 13. Dauda and Kultgen were the only players in double figures for Bentonville.
Fayetteville 74,
Little Rock Hall 29
Fayetteville scored the game's first 10 points and was never threatened as the Lady Bulldogs routed winless Little Rock Hall in the first game.
Sasha Goforth had a pair of three-pointers and finished with 11 points for Fayetteville (6-2), which led 28-6 after one quarter and 52-12 at halftime. Carly Johnson also had 11 points and was the only other player in double figures for the Lady Bulldogs, who had 11 players contribute in the scoring column.
Asia Yarbrough led Hall (0-9) with 14 points.
Sports on 12/21/2019