The Greenwood varsity girls’ basketball team has been through the wringer so far this season after facing perhaps the toughest schedule in program history under new Head Coach Ryan Casalman. The Lady Bulldogs have been competitive in most of their games, despite their anemic 2-9 record. It’s also worth noting that seven of their nine losses have been on the road against mostly larger schools.
Yet the scheduling anomalies don’t end with the non-conference season but continue into league play. Still, the best remedy for the GHS girls may be the start of the 5A West conference slate. They open on Tuesday, January 6th at Van Buren. But after beginning league play on the road against the Lady Pointers, the Greenwood girls have two home games at H.B. Stewart Arena against Harrison and Alma, and five of their next seven at home.
That favorable schedule offers Coach Casalman and his Lady Bulldogs the opportunity to right the ship and get off to a good start in the conference race. Of course, the downside is more conference road games later in the season. Last season the team was 7-8 in non-conference action before going 11-3 in league play and finishing second behind Farmington. They finished at 18-12 with a first-round loss in the state playoffs.
Coach Casalman’s efforts to revamp the non-conference slate were met with resistance from schools and potential opponents who refused to play Greenwood coming off back-to-back-to-back state titles before the retirement of former Head Coach Clay Reeves after the 2023-24 season. Reeves always played a tough non-conference schedule to prepare his teams for the rigors of league play and the state tournament, a formula that worked for many years as Reeves and his Lady Bulldogs won a total of eight state crowns in his 20+ years at Greenwood. But 2025-26 is a different season and this Lady Bulldogs’ squad is a different team with very little experience returning on the court.
“It's partly my fault,” said Casalman about the schedule. “I'll take the blame. Our schedule is murderers’ row, and it’s been that way in the past. But we've got three kids that haven't played major minutes ever. Ashlin Rose and Kylah Pearcy have played big time minutes against big time competition, but those other three really haven't. We're going to have to buck up and get tough and get ready for conference play on the 6th [of January] against Van Buren. We’ve got a lot of things to fix between now and then, and it's very doable.
“I've been telling them, ‘Hey, we’ve got to keep our minds right. We've played a tough schedule, and we've done that for a reason. But the thing you can't let it do is get you down. You've got to take every chance to play as a chance to get better. It doesn't matter what type of competition you're playing.’ But it's tough to do that, especially when we don't have experienced players. But we play these opponents to get us ready for conference play and the postseason. And I promise you, there's nobody in the state that's played the schedule we've played. So, we're going to have to right the ship one way or the other, and it doesn't have to be with a win. I'm not worried about our record until January 6th, but we do have to right the ship. We can’t [continue] to do what we're doing right now,” said the coach.
The one really bright spot on the team has been the play of senior Kylah Pearcy, who is averaging about 30 points per game thus far this season, and the team is averaging about 65 points per game. That’s not bad for girls’ high school basketball, and it should play very well once league play commences. The Lady Bulldogs are certainly in the mix for a top four finish and a berth in the state tournament and could compete for a conference championship.
More recently they completed their December schedule with games against another group of 6A powerhouse teams, Springdale Har-Ber, Fayetteville, Bryant, and North Little Rock. Every one was a GHS loss but afforded the Lady Bulldogs more chances to compete against teams physically superior to them. The first two of those games were in the Bulldog Classic tournament held the second weekend of the month at H.B. Stewart Arena.
Springdale Har-Ber
Reviving the former H.B. Stewart Classic at the arena bearing the same moniker, the Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs hosted the 2025 Bulldog Classic tournament over three days, December 11-13, with the two GHS squads playing on Friday and Saturday, December 12-13. Springdale Har-Ber, Searcy, Fayetteville, Tulsa (OK) Union, and Hugo (OK) also participated. Up first for the Lady Bulldogs were the Lady Wildcats of Springdale Har-Ber.
The first half of the game was very competitive, with the visitors leading 29-21 after eight minutes and 46-39 at halftime. But the contest got away from Greenwood in the second half, scoring just 10 points in the third quarter compared to 21 points for Har-Ber. The fourth quarter was much closer, 18-16, in favor of Springdale, making the final score, 85-65.
The GHS girls shot a decent 40% from the field, including six of 16 shots from three-point land. But Har-Ber was even better at over 48% from the floor and 50% from beyond the arc, making 10 of 20 three-pointers. While the two squads were fairly equal in most other stats, the Lady Wildcats dominated in rebounding, 45 to 27.
Individually, Kylah Pearcy led Greenwood with 32 points, five rebounds, five assists, four deflections, and two steals. She scored nine two-point field goals, two three-pointers, and hit eight of 10 shots from the line. Fellow senior Ashlin Rose added 12 points on five of six shooting and a pair of free throws. Rose also nabbed a dozen rebounds with three assists, three deflections, and two steals. No other GHS player was in double figures. Junior Halle Fox scored eight points and sophomore Ava Cranor five points.
Coach Casalman offered these brief comments after the contest. “They were really, really good,” he said of Har-Ber. “It was a single digit game at halftime, but late in the third quarter and all of the fourth we didn't do a very good job on the defensive glass. [Har-Ber] has three of the best guards in the state of Arkansas and it's hard to overcome that.
“So, we've got some things we need to figure out,” he continued. “We've got to become a better rebounding team, and we've got to become more than a one trick pony [offensively]. We’ve got to develop some people that are going to score and give us some points in other areas.”
Fayetteville
The following afternoon the GHS girls hosted the Lady Purple Dogs of Fayetteville, meeting for the second time this season. Back on November 13th the Fayetteville girls hosted and won that first contest, 79-72. But the second game wasn’t as close with the visitors winning in a blowout, 90-58. Fayetteville won every quarter by a substantial margin, starting with a 21-13 advantage after the first eight minutes. Greenwood trailed 45-31 at the break before the Lady Purple Dogs won the third quarter, 22-15, and the fourth period, 23-12.
The visitors scored 42 points from beyond the three-point line, hitting 14 of 36 long-range attempts or nearly 39%. By contrast, Greenwood hit six of 19 three-point shots. Overall, both teams made 18 two-point shots while Fayetteville outscored the Lady Bulldogs from the free throw line, 12 points to four. Greenwood was also beaten on the boards, 49 to 19, and in second chance points, 30 to four.
Kylah Pearcy scored the first 17 points for the Lady Bulldogs and finished with 37 points in 3½ quarters of play before Coach Casalman pulled his starters midway through the fourth quarter. She hit a dozen two-pointers and a trio of three-pointers plus four points at the line. Pearcy also grabbed four rebounds with three assists with one steal and one deflection.
Senior Journey Clements hit two three-pointers for six points with three rebounds. Spicer Fowler came off the bench in the second half to score five points. Halle Fox, Trinity Spicer, Eva Booth, Rylee McAdams, and Ava Cranor all scored two points each.
After the game, Coach Casalman talked about the loss and the play of his team so far this season. “[Fayetteville] did come out and shoot it well, and we’ve got to do a better job of recognizing shooters. I told the girls, when they did do a good job on a defensive possession and make them take a tough, contested shot, then we gave up offensive rebounds until they scored. I guarantee you half their points were second chance points, and that's just giving up possessions.
“Our pace of play is something unique to Greenwood, until we start giving up that many possessions to our opponent. You get beat. You give up 90 points, and you get beat by 30. So, we're going to have to sit down and look at ourselves in the mirror and see who wants to do what? We’ve got to figure out who's willing to go get a defensive rebound and who's willing to do the little things. We've been talking about that all year. It's defensive rebounds and turnovers. I do think the last couple games we've been better not turning it over, but we're still giving up second chance points after second chance points.”
Asked about the continued outstanding performance of Kylah Pearcy, her coach said, “She’s a volume shooter. She's got to take a lot of shots, especially when she's filling it up like that. But at the same time, there's going to be teams that will let her get 40 and not let anybody else score. So, we have to develop one or two more [players] that [opponents] have to worry about and will guard. That's what we've been trying to do. But when you get behind an eight ball like that, and you’ve got one feeling it like she was, I think we got caught up in the in the pace of the game and how the game was played, and we got to watching her. We can't do that.”
Bryant
This past Tuesday the GHS ladies traveled to Central Arkansas to take on the Bryant Lady Hornets but lost 61-42 after suffering a disastrous second quarter in which they scored just five points. But the first period wasn’t much better as the Lady Hornets outscored Greenwood 14-9. Trailing 27-14 at the half, the game quickly got away from the visitors in the third quarter with the home team outscoring the visitors, 28-16. The Lady Bulldogs did win the fourth quarter, 12-6, accounting for the 61-42 final.
Neither team shot the ball particularly well. Bryant made nearly 37% of their shots but Greenwood hit just over 22% of their shots, including just one of 16 three-point attempts. Continuing a concerning trend, the Lady Bulldogs were outrebounded, 53 to 26. The game was also sloppy on both sides with 45 combined turnovers split almost evenly between the two squads.
Kylah Pearcy finally proved herself to be human with her lowest scoring output of the season with 14 points on just three of 18 shooting with eight free throws. She also had four rebounds, one assist, eight deflections, and one steal. Ava Cranor added 13 points, three boards, and six deflections and Halle Fox netted eight points with six rebounds, five deflections, and four steals. Trinity Spicer had three points while Kaylyn Jones and Eva Booth added two points each.
North Little Rock
Last Friday the GHS ladies traveled down I-40 to North Little Rock to take on the Class 6A Lady Charging Wildcats in yet another 5A-6A matchup, Greenwood’s seventh such meeting of the young season, all of them losses. But once again the Lady Bulldogs proved themselves to be competitive for most of the contest. Only a poor showing in the second quarter allowed the NLR girls to build up a double-digit lead that eventually translated into a 70-58 victory.
Greenwood trailed 17-15 after the opening stanza, but a 19-6 scoring differential in the second period put them behind the eight ball at the half, down 36-21. But Coach Casalman and his girls corrected course in the second half, winning both quarters by narrow margins. The Lady Bulldogs won the third period by a point, 16-15, and the last eight minutes by a bucket, 21-19, cutting the final margin to 12 points.
The Lady Wildcats outshot the GHS girls, 42% to 36.5%, making one more two-point bucket (19 to 18) but one less three-point shot (4 to 5). NLR also won the battle of the boards, 43 to 32, and points in the paint, 34 to 24. But it was at the charity line that the game was decided. The home team had 27 free throws attempted, making 20 of them. By contrast, Greenwood was just seven of 15 at the stripe. Of course, Greenwood is aggressive defensively and had several players in foul trouble, but that’s still quite a difference.
Returning to form, Kylah Pearcy led the way offensively for Greenwood with 31 points on 12 of 31 shooting, including a pair of three-pointers and a perfect 5-for-5 from the free throw line. She also had six rebounds, two assists, two deflections, and four steals. Ava Cranor also reached double figures in scoring with 12 points plus three boards, two assists, and two deflections. Halle Fox was next with seven points, eight rebounds, two assists, six deflections, and two steals. Ashlin Rose contributed five points with five boards, and three assists, while Journey Clements added three points with a couple rebounds and a steal. Amazingly, the NLR girls had only one scorer in double figures with 10 points but had nine other players that scored at least four or more points.