CAMDEN — Playing what their coach described as “on the bubble” of making the state tournament, the Camden Fairview Cardinals won an important game Tuesday night at the Birdhouse to solidify their standing in the top four spots of the 5A South conference.
In a battle for fourth-place, Camden Fairview defeated the Hope Bobcats 42-38. The Cardinals improved to 11-8 with the win, 3-3 in conference play, while Hope falls to 11-7, 2-4.
“This (win) gets us back to .500 in the conference, and if we can get one on Friday night then we’ll be 4-3 and ready to start all over again as we start the second half of conference play,” CF coach Donnell Ford said. “We talked about this being a big game with the kids. We told them right now we’re on the bubble of being in the state tournament, and a win puts us in. Now we have stay there for eight more games.”
Ford said he knew the Bobcats would be tough coming in, as he noted that they had a number of close loses to the teams at the top of the 5A standings - just like Camden Fairview.
“Very similar to us,” Ford said. “They lost close games to Chapel and Hall just like us. The bottom line was, someone was dropping out of the top four after this game, and we didn’t want it to be us.”
The two teams played evenly throughout the game, with the biggest lead by either squad at any point in the game being five.
Behind a pair of 3-pointers by senior Byron Keaton and two free throws by Cornelius Page, the Cardinals led 12-11 at the first break before Hope battled back to lead 20-18 by intermission.
Hope got two quick baskets, including a 3-pointer, in the first two minutes of the third to forge ahead 25-20, but six big points from Devontae Martin off the bench, combined with a putback by Jonathan McCoy, kept the Redbirds within 29-28 by the start of the fourth.
An offensively putback by Jonathan Walker and an old-fashioned three-point play on a fast break by Keaton gave the Cardinals a brief 33-31 lead. Hope came right back with a 3-point shot by Corey Briggs and two teams traded the lead three more times over the next minute, going back and forth before a 3-pointer by Darius Ellis with 3:30 left gave the Cards a lead they wouldn’t give up again.
The Cardinals struggled to put Hope away, however. After Jaquez Smith hit one of two from the line to get the ‘Cats within a point, neither team scored for two minutes. Keaton broke the scoring drought with a drive to the basket with just under a minute to play, and Walker hit 2 of 4 free throws in the final 16 seconds to seal the win while Camden Fairview played good defense and got the rebounds they needed.
Keaton led the home team with 11 points, while the rest of the Cardinals’ scoring came from an extremely balanced effort. Camden Fairview had eight players score, including seven with at least four points each. Martin and Justin McCoy were the second-leading scorers with six points each.
McCoy also pulled down six rebounds, while younger brother Justin finished with 10.
Ford said even though the Cardinals are battling to get one gave over .500 in conference play when they travel to Lakeside on Friday, he feels the close losses to the top teams has shown “we can play with anybody.”
“We’re in fourth right now, but we have a shot to finish third or higher - there is still a lot of basketball to play, and we’ve been right there with everybody in the conference with a chance to win, so anything can happen,” Ford said. “And our kids have been resilient all year. We haven’t always finished, but they have been resilient.
“Lakeside is going to be tough though. Their coach is going to try and scheme us to death. They won’t be anywhere near as athletic as we are, but they will play smart and hard, and it won’t easy.”
McGehee 74,
Harmony Grove 35
The Owls showed why they are undefeated (14-0) and listed in the top five of the 3A rankings, as they rolled past the Hornets in this 8-3A conference game.
McGehee led 21-10 after one quarter of play, and 39-21 at halftime. Harmony Grove dropped to 4-17 overall, and 0-5 in league play with the loss.
CJ Parham led the Hornets with 17 points, while Dakota Rucker added eight. Steven Caple led the Owls with 21 points, while Corey Briggs finished with 10.
HG coach Larry Knight said the Hornets knew coming in that they would have to keep the Owls “off the boards” and that they would attack the basket, but added they didn’t do a good job of stopping it.
“They just played tougher around the basket than we did. They would attack, and if they missed it, they would just go get the rebound and put it back up,” Knight said, noting the Hornets were missing a player after a death in the family. “I think their depth hurt us a little bit, but we just didn’t take it to them like we needed to. We relied on our outside shooting too much, and that led to some long rebounds and fast breaks for them.”
Harmony Grove will host Lake Village on Friday.