The 2025-26 high school basketball season is now underway, and the Greenwood Lady Bulldogs have played their way through a daunting gauntlet of high-profile opponents in their first two weeks back on the hard court. Their 1-4 record is indicative of two undeniable truths – the strength and tradition of the early opposition this season and the growing pains of a Lady Bulldogs’ squad with just two returning starters from last year’s playoff team.
Those two are seniors Kylah Pearcy and Ashlin Rose, and Pearcy has been on fire in the early going, averaging nearly 30 points per game, including a 43-point performance against Fayetteville and a 37-point effort at Lake Hamilton. The Class 5A Lady Bulldogs opened their season on the road at Bentonville and Fayetteville, both Class 6A opponents. More recently they took part in the annual Lake Hamilton Classic against 4A powerhouse Nashville and 5A foes Lake Hamilton and Searcy. They will play their first home game at H.B. Stewart Arena this coming Tuesday against the Lady Tigers of Class 6A Little Rock Central.
Bentonville
Greenwood opened its season on Tuesday, November 11th in Northwest Arkansas at Bentonville High School, falling to the Lady Tigers, 81-64. Kylah Pearcy's traditional three-point play put Greenwood ahead 7-5 in the early going, but the home team went on an 11-2 run for a 16-9 cushion to end the first quarter. Still, the Lady Bulldogs stayed within striking distance throughout the first half, responding to another 8-0 Bentonville run by scoring eight of the final 11 points of the half, trailing 34-25 at the buzzer.
Kylah Pearcy's free throw followed an Ashlin Rose bucket and pulled Greenwood to within 36-28 with 5:43 left in the third quarter before Bentonville started to pull away for good. The Lady Tigers went on to build a 60-39 lead after three periods and Greenwood never got closer than 13 points again, despite winning the fourth quarter, 25-21.
Pearcy was the only Greenwood player in double figures with 28 points in the season opener, while Ashlin Rose, Journey Clements, and Halle Fox each contributed nine points. "Obviously Kylah Pearcy is an all-state player – probably one of the best in the state – and she goes out there and gets 28. That's common,” said GHS Head Coach Ryan Casalman.
"I saw some good things and obviously some things we need to work on," he continued. "We've got some kids that haven't played a lot of minutes, and their roles have changed. They're being asked to do some things they haven't had to do. This first game showed a lot of things we need to work on, and that's fine," added Casalman. "We knew we would need to work on some stuff, and we'll get back in the gym, get after it, and be a little better prepared Thursday against Fayetteville."
Fayetteville
Indeed, two days later the Lady Bulldogs returned to Northwest Arkansas to take on the Lady Purple Dogs of Fayetteville, another 6A traditional basketball power. But the GHS ladies weren’t intimidated and hung with the hometown girls despite being outscored in three of the four quarters of play. Fayetteville led 19-17 after eight minutes and 40-32 at the half.
But the visitors rallied after the intermission, outscoring Fayetteville 22-15 to put themselves right back into the game, trailing by one point, 55-54, with eight minutes remaining. Unfortunately, the Lady Purple Dogs regrouped to win the final stanza by a margin of 24-18, accounting for the final score of 79-72.
Fayetteville shot 42% to 35% for Greenwood and dominated the visitors on the glass with 54 rebounds to 28 for the Lady Bulldogs. Greenwood did have 17 steals to 12 for the home team. The two squads were relatively even in three-pointers made (six each), in free throws attempted and made, and in points off turnovers, while the Fayetteville girls outscored Greenwood in the paint, 38-28.
Five GHS players scored in the contest, led by Kylah Pearcy’s 43 points. The senior hit eight two-pointers and a trio of three-pointers while scoring 16 points at the charity stripe on 19 attempts. Sophomore Ava Cranor also scored in double digits with 12 points, followed by Journey Clements with nine, and Ashlin Rose with seven points. Rose led the squad with 10 boards while Pearcy had seven rebounds. The same two players had four assists each and Pearcy led the team with six steals.
Nashville
This past Tuesday, Coach Casalman and assistant coach Ryan Lensing accompanied their team to Garland County for the opening of the Lake Hamilton Classic, and their first opponent was Nashville, a Class 4A powerhouse under Head Coach Paul Dean, who formerly coached at Greenwood. The contest was close throughout, but Nashville managed to win each quarter by the slimmest of margins, forcing the GHS girls to play catchup for much of the game’s 48 minutes, especially in the second half, ending with a 60-54 Nashville victory.
The Lady Scrappers ended the first quarter with a slim one-point lead, 12-11, despite trailing Greenwood 9-5 just moments earlier. Another GHS lead in the second period was erased by a Nashville rally to close the first half up 26-24. But the hometown ladies pulled away for a 10-point advantage in the third quarter, leading 42-32 before Greenwood closed the period with a 7-2 run to trim the Lady Bulldogs’ deficit to 44-39 heading into the final eight minutes of play. A Journey Clements corner three-pointer cut the Nashville advantage to 49-46 midway through the fourth quarter, but the visitors were unable to claw their way back into the lead, finally succumbing to the Lady Scrappers, 60-54.
Oddly enough, Greenwood shot better from the field and from the free throw line than their Nashville hosts. The Lady Bulldogs hit almost 45% of their field goals compared to 34% for Nashville. Greenwood hit one more free throw (8 to 7) than Nashville, though the game was very clean with only 22 charity shots between the two squads. Nashville led in rebounds (38-31) and in points scored in the paint, 28 to 20. Even more telling, the home team had eight fewer turnovers than Greenwood, 15 to 23.
Once again, Greenwood’s leading scorer was Kylah Pearcy with 18 points, hitting seven of 13 field goal attempts and all four of her free throws. Ava Cranor was next with 12 points on five of 10 shooting, including a three-pointer. Ashlin Rose and Halle Fox had nine points each, with Rose hitting three of her five three-point attempts. Journey Clements had a pair of treys for her six points. Rose also led Greenwood with 10 rebounds while Kylah Pearcy led the team with seven assists and seven steals.
Lake Hamilton
Last Thursday the Lady Bulldogs returned to Lake Hamilton High School to take on the host Lady Wolves, another highly regarded program in Class 5A. But a poor fourth quarter performance by Greenwood allowed the Lake Hamilton girls to rally for a 75-69 victory. The visitors led 13-10 midway through the first quarter but trailed 19-18 at the end of the period. Outscored 19-12 in the second stanza, Greenwood went to the locker room at the intermission down 38-30. But strong defense and a big third quarter put the Lady Bulldogs on top, 55-52, only to squander that lead over the final eight minutes. The Lady Wolves won the fourth stanza by nine points, 23-14, to eke out the six-point win.
The contest was close statistically with Lake Hamilton holding a slight edge in field goal percentage, 45% to 43%, in three pointers, six to four, and in free throws, 19 to 15. Greenwood did have nearly twice as many steals as Lake Hamilton, 15 to eight, and six less turnovers (15-21), but the Lady Wolves dominated the boards, outrebounding the Lady Bulldogs by a margin of 41 to 24.
Once again, Kylah Pearcy led the GHS scoring effort with 37 points on 11 of 26 shooting, including a pair of three-pointers plus 13 of 15 free throws. Ava Cranor contributed a dozen points, hitting half of her 10 field goals and two of five shots at the charity stripe. Halle Fox netted six points, Journey Clements five points, Ashlin Rose four points, and Trinity Spicer three points to account for most of Greenwood’s points. Pearcy also had eight rebounds to lead the team, along with six assists and six steals, also team highs.
Searcy
Last Saturday the GHS ladies made yet another trip to Garland County to complete their participation in the Lake Hamilton Classic, this time against the Searcy Lady Lions, and it turns out that the third time was indeed charmed. Exploding for over 50 points in the first half, the Lady Bulldogs rolled to their first win of the season, 73-39, over the outclassed Searcy girls. Once again it was Kylah Pearcy leading the way offensively for Greenwood with 21 points. But this time she got a little more help from her teammates.
The Lady Bulldogs scored the game’s first 12 points and more than doubled Searcy’s offensive output in the opening period, outscoring the Lady Lions, 25-12. They did even better in the second quarter, more than tripling Searcy’s scoring, burning up the nets for 26 points to just eight for their opponents. With a little over three minutes remaining, Greenwood led 31-20 before scoring the last 20 points of the half. The score at the break was 51-20 and the game was essentially over with two periods left to play. Coach Casalman rested several of his starters for much of the second half, won by Greenwood, 22-19.
Statistically, Searcy narrowly won the battle of the boards, 36 to 30, but got hurt by Greenwood’s aggressive defense that generated 16 steals and 36 points off 28 Searcy turnovers. The GHS girls also shot the ball much better from the field, hitting 43% of their shots to just 29% for Searcy. Greenwood also hit 31% of its three-point shots, hitting nine of 29 attempts.
Kylah Pearcy was eight of 12 from the field and four of eight from the free throw line for a modest 21 points while playing little more than half of the game. She also nabbed seven rebounds and had five assists and seven steals. Pearcy ended her first two weeks of play averaging just over 29 points per game. Also, Ava Cranor netted 14 points with five boards and two steals. Halle Fox scored 11 points with two rebounds, five assists, and five steals. Trinity Spicer came off the bench to score nine points while senior starters Ashlin Rose and Journey Clements added seven and six points, respectively. Rose also grabbed five rebounds while Clements had a pair of assists to go along with her two three-pointers. Adalynne Fair had three points off the bench and Skyler Monks added two points.