BLYTHEVILLE -- Blytheville needed two and a half quarters to equal what Forrest City's Caronica Randle did in the first half of Tuesday's AAAAA-East game.
Randle, who scored 27 of her game-high and career-high 34 points in the first 16 minutes, helped the Lady Mustangs (8-9, 2-2) to a 52-23 lead at the half on the way to an 82-46 rout over the Lady Chicks.
It was the first-ever victory at Blytheville for third year Lady Mustang Coach Sue Jayroe and only the second win over Blytheville in the past seven meetings.
The 82 points was also a team high under Jayroe.
Blytheville (7-8, 2-2) surrendered 12 points to Randle in the first quarter and found themselves in a 23-15 hole at the end of the first period.
Forrest City used an early 13-2 run in the second quarter to push the lead to 36-17 before Blytheville's Kenya Moore ended the spurt with a pair of free throws for two of her team-high 22 points.
Randle answered with a three, spearheading a 16-4 Lady Mustang run to end the half.
Six Blytheville turnovers in the first 3:25 of the third quarter may have ended any chance Blytheville had at a comeback.
The turnovers gave Forrest City the chance to extend the lead to 60-25 and then 75-34 at the end of the third quarter.
Blytheville never got the lead under 30 points in the fourth quarter, and the clock ran the entire period.
Besides Randles' 34 points, the senior grabbed 11 rebounds, had three steals and handed out two assists. Trina Wynne scored 13 points and had three rebounds while Katrina Floyd added 12 points and six rebounds. Shay Agnew finished with eight points, including a pair of three while Sequoria Grady had five points, five rebounds, four blocked shots and seven assists. Kanetra Pendleton chipped in seven points, three rebounds and six assists.
The Forrest City victory ended a two-game losing streak.
Ebony Tyler had 10 points for Blytheville.
"We played four solid quarters of basketball," Jayroe said. "And that's what it takes to win ball games. Blytheville is as tough a place as there is in this league to go play."
Forrest City will play at Mountain Home Friday.
BLYTHEVILLE -- Blytheville's match-up zone frustrated Forrest City into 18 of 61 (29.5 percent) shooting Tuesday night and handed the Mustangs a 70-44 loss in AAAAA-East conference play.
The Chicks (7-8, 2-2 AAAAA-East) forced 20 turnovers and possibly put their mid-season shooting woes behind them, knocking down 25 of 52 (47.1 percent) from the field.
But that wasn't the entire picture painted as seen by Forrest City Coach Dwight Lofton, who conceded the Chickasaws' scrappiness as a whole.
"Blytheville came out there with determination," said Lofton, whose team never led in the game. "Blytheville is a team who expect to be in a state tournament each year. They got off to a slow start. They did what they had to do to put themselves back in the race."
For Blytheville, it was the second straight game that the team has put up 70-plus points. The Chicks downed Jacksonville last Friday 77-62.
Against the Mustangs, the Chicks had five three-pointers for the second time in the back-to-back wins.
"We didn't play much man against them because Forrest City is really, really good with the basketball," Blytheville Coach David Hixson said. "We knew that coming in. We were a little bit afraid of their size, and our match-up zone worked out really well for us. We were able to contain the ball and force them to shoot the outside perimeter shot."
Lofton also pointed out the offensive rebounding as he watched his Mustangs fall for the third straight time in East play.
" I thought that was a key," Lofton added. "They just played with more heart. They just wanted it a lot more."
Blytheville senior point guard Demarcus Luster broke out of his shell, posting a season-high 16 points and sharing game-high scoring honors with Fowler.
Luster canned the first of his two three-pointers with 3:21 left in the first quarter to give Blytheville a 11-6 lead.
After a Mustang bucket, David Williams' layup gave Blytheville a 17-8 lead with just over a minute to play in the quarter. The Chicks, who took a 17-10 edge into the second quarter, opened the frame with a 13-5 run, boosting the lead to 30-15.
Forrest City (4-10, 1-3) trimmed the lead to 34-21 at halftime. Blytheville began to pull away in the third quarter, opening with a 13-2 run and leading 55-33 at the end of the quarter.
The outcome of the game was no secret at the midway point of the fourth quarter, when Daniel Smith converted a bucket in the paint off a nice feed from Doug Echols, giving Blytheville a 62-36 lead.
The Mustangs got 10 points from Lorenzo Spearmon, the only Forrest City player in double figures. Nick Grady finished with seven while LaCody Braddock had six, Roy Lee Parker five, Markee Ervin four, and Kerry Evans and Anthony Bean just two points each.
Forrest City won the JV game 44-40 and will play at Mountain Home on Friday.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Say goodbye to the Blue and White.
Junior high teams that is.
Tuesday night, the Forrest City School Board, acting on a recommendation by Athletic Director Mike Bender, voted 5-to-1 to return the school's junior high athletic programs to the one team format.
The move, according to Bender, will be immediate, beginning with the 2003 football season in September.
Forrest City adopted the two-team format in junior high football, basketball and track at the beginning of the 2000-01 school year and designated the teams Blue and White.
"It was obvious to me that the talent level in the junior high was being spread way too thin trying to field two teams in each sport," Bender said. "We do have talent, but spreading that talent over two teams wasn't working as far as producing successful teams. By going back to just one team in each junior high sport, we hope to generate better competition and better fan support. Bottom line in school athletics, is you want to win and maybe this will build school spirit at the junior high level."
The multi-junior high team concept is in place in several school districts throughout the state, but in most cases the two junior high campuses are separate. For example, Jonesboro Annie Camp and Jonesboro MacArthur are two different junior high campuses as are the three West Memphis junior high schools -- West, East and Wonder. Forrest City's two junior high teams were housed on one campus.
"The school is divided and that makes it tough for the students as well as some parents who have kids playing on different teams," Bender said.
Bender said he has already notified the Arkansas Activities Association of the switch and has already been in touch with conference schools about changing the schedules for the 2003-04 athletic calendar.
"Going to two teams was a way to put more kids into athletics, which is always something the school wants to do," Bender said. "But we created more teams, but did not hire enough coaches to man the extra teams, which means the coaching staff is spread too thin as well."
Bender said the two-team format has not made that much difference as far as the number of senior athletes from year to year.
"I just don't think the system has worked and this is the first step to making this program better," Bender said.
Bender said he polled the junior high coaches and the pros and cons voiced by them led to their unanimous decision in returning to one team.
Going into Tuesday's board meeting, Bender said the members had been advised of the proposal and felt they were in favor of such a move.
Bender doesn't anticipate losing any of the current junor high coaches, unless as Bender noted, "they choose to leave on their own."
"We fully expect to place them in other capacities which we feel will only help in our efforts to beef up the athletic program," Bender said.
Bender wants to add coaches to the seventh and eighth-grade programs which will hopefully allow those teams to play a better schedule. Bender wants to see a boys' seventh-grade basketball program started as well and says that's where the high school coaching staff may come into play.
"We want it to be a complete staff effort by all of our coaches," Bender said.
Stan Siler and Rich Trail are the head coaches of the two junior high football teams while Sonny Shields, Jimmy Williams and Monty Thornton are the junior high basketball coaches.
Bender also hopes the format change will carry over to help with the high school football program, aiming at the junior varsity schedule of games.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
HUGHES -- The Hughes Blue Devils took a huge step toward securing the 3AA Conference title Tuesday night, holding off Crawfordsville 69-65 at Blue Devil Gym.
It was the second meeting of the year between the two conference leaders. Hughes won the first game played at Crawfordsville 86-81 in overtime.
Hughes improves to 9-5 overall and 7-1 in the league. Crawfordsville has two losses in conference play, both against Hughes.
The Blue Devils got 19 points from Jermaine Davis, 16 points from Malcolm Curne, 11 points from Johnny Washington and 10 points from Kevin Hatton. David Dowden added nine.
Both teams ended the first period locked in a 15-15 tie and Crawfordsville led 32-21 at the half and 49-45 after three.
Hughes took the lead at 53-52 with under six minutes to play and held on for the win, outscoring the Tigers 12-to-8 down the stretch.
Crawfordsville's Willie Harris led all scorers with 22 points while Jerry Burnett and Morris Johnson had 10 points each.
The Tigers drilled 10 three pointers, five of that total, in the first period of the game.
Hughes used a 5-0 run to open the third period before the Tigers scored the next seven points. The Blue Devils answered with a 13-to-4 scoring run to cut the Tigers' lead to 43-41 with 1:45 to play in the third period.
In senior girls' play, LaTerria Broyles and Victoria Doolittle each scored eight points to lead the Lady Blue Devils past Crawfordsville 58-37 and improve to 5-5 overall and 5-3 in the league.
Marley Lemons added seven while five players, Takindra Smith, Rachel Burks, DeAngela Smith, Valraneeka Brown and Shamika Porter each added six points.
Hughes led 17-15 after one period and 32-22 at the half before pushing their lead to 48-30 to start the fourth period.
The junior high Hughes girls won 41-28 behind 11 points from Shatina Tiggs and eight points from Joyce Tucker and six points each from Egypt Smith and Latisha Powell.
The Junior Lady Blue Devils are 4-1 for the year.
Hughes will play 3AA game at Cross County Friday night.
ELAINE -- The Palestine-Wheatley Lady Patriots had four girls in double figures Tuesday night which equaled a 65-40 win over Elaine in 6AA Conference play.
The victory leaves the Lady Patriots at 6-0 as the first half of the league's round-robin schedule ends. P-W is 9-6 overall.
Libby Martin led all P-W scorers with 15 points while Brittany Flenory scored 14, Nikita Love 12 and LaRhonda Bender added 11. LaQuanza Reeder had six while Beth Varvil chipped in four.
P-W scored 24 points in the fourth period to "close out the deal," according to head coach Lanny Alken. "It's time to not worry about being nice. It's time to put the teams away when you have the chance."
In other games played Tuesday, Elaine defeated the P-W Patriots on a last-second tip-in basket and the Elaine junior boys downed P-W's Junior Patriots.