Lady Bulldogs 64 - Huntsville 41 Bulldogs 61 - Huntsville 39
Lady Bulldogs 56 - Greenbrier 43 Bulldogs 53 - Greenbrier 47
GHS basketball squads rolling through early league schedule
Half-a-dozen games into the 2012 conference season, the Greenwood High School Bulldogs and Lady 'Dogs are in prime position to make a serious run at winning their respective league titles. After last Friday's twin wins over Greenbrier and Tuesday's doubleheader sweep of Huntsville, the GHS girls are perfect at 6-0 in 5A West play, while the boys improved to 4-2 against league foes.
Just two years removed from a state title, and highly ranked once again, the Lady Bulldogs are getting accustomed to leading the pack. But for the GHS boys, this is a new and exciting experience. Taking over a sagging program in 2009, head coach Brian Martin, a GHS alum, appears to have turned the corner on resurrecting the glory days of the late 1990's when he was a starting guard for a Bulldogs' team that reached the state finals. At 4-2 in league play and 14-6 overall, the Bulldogs are off to their best start in Martin's three years at the helm. Even more impressive is the fact that they have yet to lose a conference game on the road in three tries. Last Friday's victory over Huntsville also stopped a curious two-game home losing streak in conference play. Both GHS teams close out the first half of the league schedule this week with a trip to Morrilton on Friday (January 27th).
Greenwood at Greenbrier
Last Friday (January 20th) both GHS teams traveled to Greenbrier and came away with a pair of solid road wins. The Lady Bulldogs won 56-43 while the Bulldogs downed the Panthers, 53-47. The doubleheader sweep continued Greenwood's uncanny run of road victories in conference play this season. Both teams are a perfect 3-0 away from Greenwood's H. B. Stewart Arena.
The GHS girls ran off to a 35-18 halftime lead after scoring 15 and 20 points in the first two quarters. The Lady Panthers rallied somewhat in the second half, outscoring Greenwood 15-11 in the third period and matching Greenwood's 10 points over the last eight minutes, but it wasn't enough to offset the big early lead by the visitors.
The Lady Bulldogs got balanced scoring from several players, including three girls with 12 points each. Freshman guard Megan Hartness, sophomore guard Lundon Williams, and senior forward Endsley Evans all netted a dozen points. Evans' points came despite nursing an injury. "It wasn't one of our better games," said Coach Reeves. "You're going to have good games and games when you're not playing quite so [well]. But I thought Greenbrier did a good job. We didn't rebound quite as well as we have been, and that hurts us when we don't rebound."
In the boys' game, the outcome remained in doubt almost to the very end, as both teams matched up offensively through the first three quarters. Greenwood led 9-8 after one period and 19-18 at the half. The scoring picked up in the third quarter with each team netting 17 points, keeping the margin at a single point at 36-35. The Bulldogs hung with the Panthers in the third stanza largely on the strength of senior Ryan Lensing's three-point shooting. He hit three treys to account for 9 of Greenwood's 17 points. The Bulldogs also scored 17 points in the fourth quarter and held Greenbrier to 12 points, making the final margin of victory six points at 53-47.
Lensing led the way offensively with 16 points, followed by juniors Drew Morgan and Cole McAlister with 10 points each. Junior Colton McEvoy added six points in the winning effort. "He's come out in the last two third quarters and shot the ball really well," said Coach Martin. "He's gotten some open looks and knocked them down." Martin acknowledged that Lensing hasn't been shooting the ball as well this season as in the past, but believes his senior leader is coming around. "That happens sometimes with a shooter," said the coach. "But he's coming out of it and he'll be fine. I have all the confidence in the world in Ryan."
Huntsville at Greenwood
The Lady Bulldogs left no doubt which was the better team last Tuesday (January 24th) against Huntsville at H. B. Stewart Arena, scoring in double digits in all four quarters en route to a convincing 64-41 win. Greenwood scored 18 points in each of the first two periods to build a comfortable 36-19 lead at the half. While still playing good defense and limiting the Lady Eagles to 22 points in the second half, the Lady 'Dogs scored 13 and 15 points in the third and fourth quarters, led by sophomore Lundon Williams.
The daughter of assistant coach Ronnie Williams, the GHS point guard made a trio of three-pointers and tallied 23 total points for the game. Asked about Williams' performance, Coach Clay Reeves said, "We knew [the Lady Eagles] were going to play good defense. So we needed to attack them, and [Lundon] did a good job of attacking."
Juniors Allie Barnes and Sammy Richards also reached double figures in scoring with 11 and 10 points, respectively. Megan Hartness chipped in with six points as the Lady Bulldogs improved their league mark to 6-0 and their overall record to 15-4. Greenwood had scoring runs of 10-0 and 9-0 in the first half, then added an 11-0 run in the fourth quarter, invoking the Arkansas Activities Association's mercy rule to remain undefeated in 5A-West play. Also of note, senior forward Endsley Evans did not play against Huntsville. According to Coach Reeves, Evans is nursing a tender ankle and will be given some time off to heal.
In the boys' game that followed, the Bulldogs and Eagles got off to a slow start offensively. Greenwood's Drew Morgan scored the game's first basket at the 5:40 mark after a nice move along the baseline. The quarter ended with the teams knotted at 11 apiece after Drew Chapel hit a three-pointer for the Bulldogs inside the final minute to tie the score. Greenwood also tallied the first 11 points of the second quarter, forcing Huntsville into committing eight turnovers, and held the Eagles without a basket on eight field goal attempts. The Bulldogs held Huntsville scoreless for nearly all of the second period and led 24-16 at the intermission.
As the two teams were going through their warm-up drills before the start of the second half, the lights in the arena went out momentarily before emergency lighting came on. But due to the unique nature of the lighting system, it took nearly 15 minutes for the lights to cool down and restart, delaying the inevitable for the visiting Eagles, who remained winless in conference play this season. The Bulldogs outscored them 17-6 in the third period and 20-17 in the fourth to notch the 61-39 victory.
"It feels good to finally win a conference game at home," said Coach Martin. "We came out on the short end in the first two [games]. Maybe this will get us rolling for the next four home games coming up in February." Huntsville head coach Jim Stafford was quite complimentary of the Bulldogs. "They put a lot of pressure on us defensively," he said. "They're real physical. They whipped us on the boards. They out-toughed us is what it amounts to."
"It was a good second quarter," said Martin. "We got some easy back-cuts at the rim that we were missing in the first quarter. Then we came into the third quarter on fire." Ryan Lensing started the third quarter with a hot hand, knocking down a pair of threes in quick succession, and adding a two-point field goal as well. Greenwood led 29-16 before Huntsville scored its first basket of the second half. The Bulldogs closed out the third period leading 41-22, and cruised through the final period for the 22-point victory.
"That was a good run for us," said Martin about his team's third quarter performance. "It really opened the game up. It was good to see us shoot the ball well in the second half. We've been missing that." Junior forward Ethan Clark had 12 points and grabbed seven rebounds for the Bulldogs. Lensing added 12 points, as did Colton McEvoy. Jansen Stein had six points and a team-high nine rebounds. Drew Caple also contributed eight points in the victory. Greenwood grabbed a total of 24 offensive rebounds.
Asked to reflect on the state of his program at this point in his third season, Martin expressed both optimism and a touch of reality. "This is our third year and we've gradually gotten better each year," said the coach. "We feel like we've got as good a chance as anybody to win this conference and make the state tournament. We're playing [well] right now and we just need to keep finding a way to win in the fourth quarter."
Both GHS squads were slated to play Friday night (January 27th) at Morrilton to close out the first half of the double round-robin conference schedule. Each league team plays the other seven opponents twice in a home-and-home arrangement for a total of 14 conference games. At the end of the season, the top four teams earn the right to compete in the state tournament. The GHS girls are familiar with the post-season, having been there many times, but this year could be a first for the GHS boys under Coach Martin.