On a night when it was a struggle, the Little Rock Central Tigers did enough right to continue their midseason surge.
The Tigers (14-5, 4-3 6A Central) put away a stubborn Little Rock Catholic team for a 38-28 victory Friday night. It was Central's fourth consecutive victory after a 0-3 start in league play.
"I'm proud of the kids,'' said first-year Central Coach Brian Ross. "They didn't give up after a rough start."
The Tigers led 7-5 after the first quarter and 16-11 at halftime.
Senior guard AJ Williams hit 8 of 10 free throws in the final 2:21 to put the game away for the Tigers, who outscored the Rockets 12-3 in the final 5 minutes.
The Rockets tied the score 22-22 when junior Cade Riggan hit a three-pointer with 6:18 left. The teams traded baskets until junior Charles Daniel made a three-pointer with 4:53 left to give the Rockets a 26-25 lead. Catholic would not score again until 12 seconds remained.
"Catholic was playing great defense, I feel like we were playing great defense,'' said Ross. "You hold a team as good as Catholic and shoots as well as they do to 28 points, you are feeling good about that end of the floor obviously.
"We need to play better on offense but we don't care what the score is as long as we have got more points than they do at the end."
In the low-scoring first half, Catholic was 4 of 24 from the field, while Central was 4 of 15 and committed 7 turnovers.
Williams made 10 of 13 free throws and led the Tigers with 16 points.
Daniel led the Rockets with 11 points.
"We lost three tough games to start conference play,'' said Ross. "Credit to my kids not getting their heads down and giving up. They just stayed the course and kept trying to get better one day at a time and here we are right back i the middle of things halfway through conference play."
Sports on 01/26/2019