The Greenwood Lady Bulldogs moved to 4-2 in 5A West Conference play last Tuesday night with a 51-38 victory at home over the visiting Lady Goblins of Harrison. In the second game, the GHS boys looked sluggish in suffering a 71-53 defeat, dropping their league mark to 3-3. Both Greenwood teams hit the road for their next three games, returning home on Friday, February 12th to face Greenbrier.     Strong Fourth Period Lifts Lady Bulldogs

The Greenwood and Harrison girls looked evenly matched through the first 16 minutes of play. The Lady Goblins led 10-8 after one period, but trailed 25-24 at the halftime break after Greenwood won the second quarter, sparked by some long-distance shooting from junior forward Jessicah Moudy. With the game still a seesaw affair midway through the third period, GHS head coach Clay Reeves decided to speed up the pace of the game and ordered his players to extend the defense and apply some pressure to the Lady Goblins. The result was a 34-31 Greenwood lead as the two teams headed into the final period of play.

The strategy continued to work early in the fourth quarter as Greenwood added to its lead, calling a timeout at the 5:34 mark, up 39-34. Following a Harrison turnover, Greenwood sophomore forward Endsley Evans scored inside as the clock ticked past 5:00 remaining. Another GHS basket by sophomore Haley Donald caused Harrison to call a timeout, trailing 43-34 with 4:21 left to play. But the Lady Goblins scored only one more field goal in the game, while Greenwood salted the victory away from the free throw line. Senior guard Rebel Clay hit four consecutive free throws on two separate trips to the line, as Greenwood scored six of its final eight points at the charity stripe. For the game, Evans led all GHS scorers with 17 points. Jessicah Moudy added 15 points, while senior guard Lynsey Turner and Donald added seven and six points, respectively. The Lady 'Dogs improved to 12-7 overall with the win.

After the victory, Coach Reeves talked with the local media and described the early part of the game. "It was tight," he said, "[just] one or two points, and I felt like we needed to do something to change the pace of the game. Fortunately, it worked out when we sped the game up and did some different things on defense that disrupted their rhythm, and caused us to play a little bit better."

The coach also praised his sophomore post player, Endsley Evans, who led the team in scoring. "She did a good job of getting those offensive rebounds early," said Reeves. "She does a good job in our post, and our guards, this is the best they've done all year getting the ball to her, and her taking the shots. That's what we've been trying to stress all year, because we're pretty balanced inside and out, and tonight we hit a lot of threes and we were scoring inside."

Reeves continued by addressing the clutch shooting from the charity stripe that preserved the win. "Our girls stepped up and hit the free throws," he said. "We just had to take care of the ball, and I just thought we picked it up a lot on defense there at the end of the third quarter and into the fourth quarter. Fortunately [Jessicah] Moudy was hitting early, which kind of opened the game up [inside], and Endsley [Evans] did a good job on offensive rebounds and scoring around the basket."

The coach also spoke of his team's position in the 5A West Conference with eight games remaining. "At this point at 4-2, that's probably where I would have guessed we would have been. But right now we want to be 5-2 after Friday. We've played really [well] on the road and we expect to on Friday night."

Tired Bulldogs Outplayed By Goblins

In the second game, the ailing and apparently exhausted Bulldogs fell behind early, then rallied in the second quarter, closing the gap to just four points at halftime. But another poor start in the second half doomed the 'Dogs, as they fell behind by double digits and eventually lost by 18 points. Senior guard Brandon Brewer and sophomore guard Braden Suter, the team's best three-point shooter, were both hampered by health issues, though both did play. Senior forward Spencer Harris had some nice blocked shots in the post, but wasn't much of a factor offensively.

The Goblins scored the game's first points on their second possession, hitting a three-point shot, while the Bulldogs did not score their first field goal until Billyjack Freeman grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on a put back at the 3:30 mark. A junior forward, Freeman's performance was one of the few bright spots for the Bulldogs in the game. Harrison led 15-3 with 1:11 remaining in the opening stanza, before Greenwood got two closing baskets by junior guard Shawn Hankins and Freeman, who scored on another put back at the buzzer.

Trailing 17-7 at the beginning of the second period, Greenwood began its comeback behind a three-point basket from sophomore guard Ryan Lensing. Senior forward Kyle Helms then scored off an offensive rebound, cutting the deficit to 17-12 less than a minute into the quarter. Trailing 22-14, Braden Suter hit his first long ball of the game, followed by another trey from Lensing and a second bomb by Suter, trimming the Goblins' lead to just 25-23 at the 3:19 mark. But the Harrison bench quickly called a timeout to stop the bleeding, and Harrison regrouped to take a 34-30 advantage into the intermission.

But things went bad quickly in the third period, as Harrison scored the first five points of the quarter, building a 39-30 margin. GHS head coach Brian Martin called time to settle his team down, but the Bulldogs never got closer than eight points the rest of the way. Too many unforced turnovers and poor shooting doomed any hopes for a comeback. Greenwood threw away three inbounds passes and gave up several fast break baskets to the Goblins, who appeared to have fresher legs. Harrison led 56-43 after three periods and cruised to the 71-53 win. Lensing finished the game with a team high 22 points, nearly half of which he earned at the free throw line. Freeman added 10 points, while sophomore guard Hayden Smith scored seven points and Suter added six points on his two three-pointers.

After the game, an obviously disappointed Coach Martin spoke with the press about the loss. "We just really looked tired tonight," said Martin. "Our overall effort wasn't there for four quarters. We did a good job fighting back in the second quarter to make it a four-point game at the half, but we looked like a different team in the second half. Brewer has bronchitis and Suter possibly has an appendix problem, but those are not excuses. We just played like a tired team. We've got to rebound and get better."

Martin acknowledged the sloppy play in the second half and the high numbers of turnovers by his Bulldogs. "We didn't look like our normal selves," said the coach. "Those inbounds plays that were turnovers ended up in points on the other end, and throwing the ball out-of-bounds - those are unforced turnovers that you just can't have in a conference game. We just looked like a tired basketball team."

Road Warriors

The next three conference games will be on the road for Greenwood, which travels to Central Arkansas Christian this coming Tuesday night, to make up the canceled game last Friday due to weather, and then to Morrilton and Siloam Springs on February 5th and 9th, respectively. In Class 5A, the top four conference teams qualify for the 16-team state tournament to be held in March at Alma's Airedale Arena.