Rogers may have suffered its first loss Tuesday, but according to head Coach Lamont Frazier, the Mounties can ill afford to let it linger.
“I truly believe the guys felt like they let one get away,” Frazier said of his team’s 39-36 home loss to Bentonville West. “One nice thing about our guys, though, has been that we’ve always had a short-term memory, whether it was a big win or a loss. We always seem to let it go and move on to the next task at hand.
“With everything that’s happened this year, I’ll be very interested to see how we move forward.”
The Mounties (13-1, 2-1 6A-West) scored a combined nine points in the second and fourth quarters and were held to a season low in scoring against the Wolverines. Rogers, which is playing without leading scorer Drew Miller, still willed its way to a 36-33 lead with a little over three minutes remaining, yet left the door open by not scoring again.
Frazier pointed to several factors that could’ve attributed to the loss, including the lack of offensive punch from the guys he suited up. But the one reason he found himself coming back to revolved around effort.
“When push came to shove, I felt like [Bentonville West] wanted it more than we did,” he said. “They got every loose ball, they were in position to make the right play, and we found ourselves out of position 90% of the time. The better team won, and we didn’t do the job we needed to do.
“I take full responsibility for that, and that’s something that we’re going to get corrected as we move forward.”
Rogers has a chance to get back in the winning column tonight against Springdale, and Frazier said he’s excited to see how his team responds after having its 13-game unbeaten streak stopped.
“It works one or two ways. Either you can come back, get the bad taste out your mouths and get the chip back on your shoulders,” he explained, “or I’ve got to be responsible for grinding us until we get back to that point. One way or the other, it’s going to happen. We can paint it however we want to, but the bottom line is you’ve got to be ready to play every time you step on the floor.”
HARRISON GIRLS
Spooking the opposition
Harrison Coach Doug Young finally has a full complement of players, and that could spell trouble for opposing teams — as if a dominating 17-1 start was imposing enough.
“We’ve been fortunate,” Young said. “We lost our point guard [Sydney Shrum] early in the year, and we just got her back against Berryville the other night. But we’ve had some kids step up and do some outstanding jobs.
“I’ve just been very proud of them.”
The Lady Goblins (17-1, 3-0 4A-1) dropped their first game of the season but haven’t lost since. While seniors Kenzi Parker, Marion Groberg and Caroline Cecil have done their share of the heavy lifting for Harrison, it’s the teams’ overall depth that’s stood out.
“We don’t have just one outstanding player,” Young stated. “All five starters have been in double figures at different times, and we’re all about the same size. Teams have to guard all of us, and that can make it tough. … we’re just pretty balanced all the way across.”
Juniors Mariah Hudson, a transfer from Mountain Home, and Maggie Salmon also have bolstered an already potent lineup, giving Young even more firepower to work with.
“Both of them have done an outstanding job of taking up the slack,” he said. “Our sophomores have given us some valuable minutes, too, so hopefully this will just help us get a little stronger. We’ve just got to stay focused, play one game at a time and not look ahead.”
LR HALL BOYS
Putting it all together
Little Rock Hall lost a surplus of talent from a team that played for the Class 5A state title last season, but Jon Coleman’s crew has found a way to stay ahead of any learning curve.
The Warriors are playing some of their best basketball at just the right time. Hall (6-4) opened 5A-Central play with a relatively easy 53-32 victory at Watson Chapel on Tuesday night, but prior to that, the Warriors played well in a pair of games at the Ultimate South Showcase in Memphis last weekend. Hall knocked off a Briarcrest Christian, Tenn., team that had beaten IMG Academy, Fla., ranked No. 12 by Max Preps, a day earlier. The Warriors also had a chance to beat highly rated Covington, Tenn., on Saturday but missed 10 free throws and ended up losing by two points.
“They’re playing really hard and defending really well,” said Coleman, the 10th-year Hall coach. “The biggest surprise, to me, is how well they’ve bonded together. We had our team last year for two years, and naturally they had a cohesiveness about them. But this group, even though they haven’t played together until now, is really gelling together a lot faster than I anticipated.”
A portion of the credit for the Warriors’ cohesion can be directed to forward Dylon Session. The 6-7 senior had been a reserve player for most of his career at Hall, but Coleman revels in the fact that Session has thrived in an expanded role.
“He’s embraced that fact that he’s one of the leaders of our team,” Coleman said. “He’s an extremely athletic kid who worked really hard over the summer to increase his strength and improve his ability to go both ways, which is really helping him this season.”
VILONIA GIRLS
Adjusting on the fly
Experience has paid off in more ways than one for Vilonia.
The Lady Eagles started the year with a 67-52 loss to Fayetteville during the second week of November, but they’ve responded by winning 14 games in a row in a variety of ways.
Vilonia (14-1, 2-0 5A-West) has won four games by at least 41 points, used its defense to grind out a 39-25 victory over Alma and had to battle back from a late deficit to beat Watson Chapel 58-54.
“When it gets tough, they just find a way to win,” Vilonia Coach Alvin Riley said. “We’ve got quite a few returners from last year, but we’ve also got a couple of starters who haven’t played at all because they’ve been injured. But we’ve got pretty good balance inside and outside. We don’t shoot it as well as we did last year, but we’re better inside, especially on the boards.
“And when we’ve needed to turn it up, we’ve been able to do that.”
Seniors Riley Bridges and Paige Kelley are two of the reasons the Lady Eagles have persevered when games have gotten tight. Riley, however, feels those contests will get even tighter over the ensuing weeks, beginning tonight against 5A-West conference foe Greenwood (11-4, 1-1). Vilonia won both games against the Lady Bulldogs last season.
“We’re about to run into a buzz saw,” Riley said. “We’re going have to be able to control the tempo some, and we’re going to have to keep our possessions without turnovers. Greenwood will get up in you and get after you.
“They create a lot of havoc, and we’re going to have to take care of the ball.”
ROSE BUD GIRLS
Sweet-smelling mentality
The past seven days have been pretty good for Rose Bud.
The Lady Ramblers took down two of the top teams in Class 3A, starting with a 36-31 victory over No. 6 Valley Springs on Jan. 10 and followed that with a 54-51 conquest of No. 1 Mountain View, which ended the Lady Yellowjackets’ 14-game winning streak.
“It all starts on the defensive end,” Rose Bud Coach Bradley Moss said. “Tuesday, Mountain View was so much bigger than us at every spot, but my kids did a really good job of guarding the post. As small as we are, we’ve been rebounding the ball pretty well, too, and that makes a huge difference.”
Rose Bud (12-5, 5-2 3A-1 East), which has won four of its past five overall, has gotten a huge chunk of its scoring from guards Hope Hartle, a senior, and Kyndal Rooks, a sophomore, but the Lady Ramblers are allowing just 38 points per game.
“We’ve got a bunch of kids that have just bowed in on the defensive end, starting with Kelsey Taylor,” Moss said. “She guards the other teams’ best player night in and night out. Skylar Wise, Caitlyn Waggoner, Briley Chandler, they’re all doing their jobs and helping us on that end of the floor. But all these kids just love winning.
“They don’t care who scores, don’t care who gets the recognition. They’re fearless and have the mindset that they can play with and beat anybody on any given night.”