After starting their season 4-0, the Greenwood Lady Bulldogs suffered their first loss to a very good Bentonville team last Thursday. The Class 7A Lady Tigers had a definite size advantage and shot 60% for the game in a 61-47 win.
After being sidelined for 12 days around the Thanksgiving holiday, the GHS girls struggled with their shooting (20 of 68) and had difficulty penetrating Bentonville’s interior defense, guarded primarily by 6’4” center Maryam Dauda, who also led both teams in scoring with 20 points.
Greenwood trailed throughout the game, played at H.B. Stewart Arena. Bentonville hit two three-pointers early and built an 8-0 lead before junior forward Harley Terry banked one off the glass from near the free throw line to put the Lady Bulldogs on the board.
Greenwood never got closer than four points in the opening period and trailed 19-11 after eight minutes. They were behind 22-15 at the 4:30 mark of the second quarter, but fought back to make it 23-19 on a pair of free throws and a put back basket by senior guard Kyiah Julian. Still, Bentonville led 29-21 at the half.
The Lady Tigers took charge of the game in the third quarter with a pair of scoring runs. After Julian scored the opening bucket of the period, Bentonville netted the next five points to lead 34-23.
GHS sophomore shooting guard Kinley Fisher then hit consecutive three-pointers to temporarily keep her team in the game, trailing 35-29 at the four-minute mark. But an 8-0 run by Bentonville put the visitors up by double digits, and the Lady Tigers led 45-31 as the quarter ended.
Bentonville increased its lead to 20 points midway through the final period at 55-35 before both teams began subbing in new players to finish the game.
Kinley Fisher and Ally Sockey led Greenwood in scoring with 10 points each, followed by Kyiah Julian and Angela Price with eight points each.
After the contest, GHS Head Coach Clay Reeves, who has seven state titles to his credit, talked about the game and his team’s strength-of-schedule.
“They shot [well] and moved the ball well,” said the coach of the Lady Tigers. “I thought our kids were playing hard, but if we’re a little more aggressive on offense, and hit some of our layups, and move the ball a little quicker to get our shots, I feel like we still had a chance [to win].
“[Bentonville] kept hitting shots, but our kids kept competing,” said Reeves. “Things weren’t going [well] for a while. But when things don’t go [well] you’ve got to keep playing. We weren’t shooting very well, so we have to keep going after it on defense and rebounding and hustle.
“With [Dauda] in the middle it [made] it a little harder for us,” he admitted. “She affected our shots some under the basket. That makes it tougher, but it gives us stuff to work on. I didn’t think we were quite as aggressive off the dribble to make the defense collapse, and we didn’t move quite well enough.
“That’s gotten us by for four games, but until somebody actually shows us, and we actually see it, those things we really couldn’t correct like we need too. So we’ll start working on that stuff.
“They know why we play the schedule we play. We play the best teams we can get. The biggest, the strongest, and the highest level of classification. We don’t run from anybody,” said the coach.
“We know it helps us at the end [of the season]. With the schedule we have until we hit conference play, it’s going to be extremely tough, but it’s going to make us better. And once we get to conference, some of the best team’s in the state overall are in our class.
“Our kids are up for it,” said Reeves. “They’re ready to start getting better and I’m ready to start practicing, and we’re going to get where we need to be.”
The Lady Bulldogs return to live action this week in tournament play at Hot Springs starting on Thursday against the host Lady Trojans. The GHS girls will also play on Friday and Saturday.
Their next home game at H.B. Stewart Arena will be next Tuesday at 6 p.m. against the Lady Cardinals of Farmington. The Greenwood girls will travel to Pine Bluff to face Watson Chapel next Friday.