CAMDEN — By PATRIC FLANNIGAN
Sports editor
It won’t be today.
That’s probably what both the Bearden Lady Bears and the Harmony Grove Hornets had in mind when both teams were faced with the possibility of taking the floor for the last time in the 2019 basketball season. However, each team was able to win its first round game of the District tournament in Fordyce on Monday.
Not only was each team ranked last in their selective divisions, but both teams won its games in runaway fashion to keep their seasons alive.
In the first game of the 8 2A Region Tournament, the Lady Bears jumped on the Lafayette County Lady Cougars early on its way to 56-37 victory. The night concluded with the Harmony Grove Hornets defeating Spring Hill 69-49.
The Lady Bears were dominant early and often in its game against LC with points coming from every where. LC was unable to zero in on one player as Latreese Wright scored six points, Shae Juniel and Evie Porter scored four points each and Tanisha Johnson, Jaylah Williams and Nybrea Hughes combined for six points. Bearden was also flawless on the defensive end and executed in the fast break. At the end of the first quarter, the Lady Bears were up 20-3 and the route was on.
Bearden wouldn’t slow down from there as Porter got hot beyond the arch and nailed three, threes in the second quarter almost effortlessly. In the third, Porter would drill three more threes as Coach James Murray’s squad would go up by as many as 21 points in the game.
The Lady Bears back court clicked on all cylinders with Porter ended the night with a season high of 28 points and Wright scoring 12. Juniel finished the night with 8 points. Murray said his team had played the best defense he has seen all year and that was a key factor in the team’s offensive execution.
“Evie Porter got hot and she’s capable of doing it every game,” Its just been a struggle this year. Those girls that we just played they’ve beaten us twice. Tonight we came out and played like I knew they could play all year long. If we play together, we’re a pretty solid team. If were making turnovers and playing sloppy that’s when you get beat. I think we played with a little sense of urgency tonight. Evie’s a senior and Jaylah’s a senior both of them played good and that’s a blessing. That’s really good. I’m proud of the kids, I’m proud for’em to get the win. We got two more to go to try and get to regional. And you know, who knows? That’s why we play the game... I think if we keep playing together and shooting the ball well we can pretty much beat anybody. We’ll figure it out one game at a time and just keep trying to move on.”
Harmony Grove stings
Spring Hill
Harmony Grove set the tone early in the first quarter opening the game on a 7-0 run. From Landon McMahon chasing down and breaking up a fast break to Antwoin Edwards coming up with a big time block on a layup, the Hornets made it evident that they weren’t ready to wrap up its basketball season.
Spring Hill wouldn’t go quietly though. H.G. went up 24-13 early in the second, but Spring Hill got back into the game making it 26-24 late in the first half. However, H.G.’s ball movement would pay off as McMahon found Xaylon Falls for a three and then Edwards found McMahon for another to give H.G. the 32-24 lead at the half.
The closing moments of the first half proved pivotal as Spring Hill again went on a run to cut the lead down to three points. Junior Mason McClure came in the game and provided a spark on offense hitting two well-timed threes.
H.G.’s fourth quarter play has been problematic all season. The Hornets have found themselves with leads against opponents late - event some of the top teams in the conference, but came out on the short end of the stick. Tuesday night, wouldn’t be a repeat of those final quarter failures.
“We haven’t been playing well,” H.G. Head Coach Jon Pigott said. “We hang in games and can’t finish them, but we finally finished one. That’s always nice.”
H.G. entered the fourth quarter with a 47-35 lead but stayed aggressive on offense. McClure hit a huge three to put the Hornets up 18 with under two minutes left. From there, the Hornets would cruise to a win. Pigott said that McClure “came in hot” off of the bench and played a big role in the win. McClure ended the night with 11 points. Edwards and Falls both added 13 points and Logan Hutchins pulled down 8 rebounds to go along with 6 points.
“We’ve been preparing for this game for about a week now,” Pigott explained. “The other games mattered but we knew it wouldn’t change our seeding so we starting looking ahead to this one. We knew we had to get this one in order for us to move on.”
The Lady Bears advance to play the fifth seeded Woodlawn girls at 4 p.m. on tonight. The varsity Hornets will play the Woodlawn boys at 5:30 p.m.
The varsity Bearden Bears will play Fordyce at 8:30 p.m. on Tuesday.