By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Matisha Dobbins poured in 18 points and Fareeda Washington added 13 to lift the Forrest City Junior Lady Mustangs to a 42-34 win over Marianna Monday night at Mustang Arena.
The victory gives the Junior Lady Mustangs a 2-0 start under first-year head coach Jacky England.
The girls defeated Wynne last Thursday in the season opener.
It is the best start for a junior girls basketball team since the mid 1990s.
A year ago, both the Blue and White girls' teams opened the year at 1-1.
"We did some things better against Marianna than we did against Wynne," England said after the game. "But we also did some things better against Wynne than we did tonight. The bottom line is that the girls won the game and that's all that matters right now."
Forrest City led 11-5 after one period and were up 20-15 at the half.
In the third period, the Junior Lady Mustangs pushed their lead to 10 points before Marianna cut it back to 30-24 to start the final period.
With 2:47 to play in the game, Forrest City led 38-28 but Marianna hit a three-pointer cutting the lead to 38-31 with two minutes to play.
Forrest City scored four points in the final four minutes to hold off the Junior Lady Trojans.
Nikki Willis led Marianna with 11 points while Ashley Little added eight.
Cassie Barton finished with four points for Forrest City while DeKisha Norris finished with five points.
*In the junior boys game, Forrest City got 23 points from Stephon Weaver and 15 points from Marcus Britt in a 55-29 win over Marianna.
Following a low-scoring first period, Forrest City led 6-2 to start the second period.
A 7-0 run to close out the first half had the Junior Mustangs (2-0) up 17-8 at the half.
The Junior Mustangs put together an 8-4 run to open the third period and led 25-12 with 2:50 to play in the quarter.
The fourth period belonged to Forrest City as Weaver dropped in nine of his 23 points and the Junior Mustangs led 50-27 with less than a minute to play.
The Forrest City junior teams will travel to Marianna on Monday, Nov. 24, for a rematch.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
A loss is never a pleasant experience for a coach or the players but for Sue Jayroe's Lady Mustangs, Monday's opening season loss to Mount St. Mary's wasn't a total disappointment.
The Lady Mustangs opened the 2003-04 season Monday night at the Heavenly Hoopfest Tournament being played this week at Mount Saint Mary's in Little Rock.
Drawing the home team Lady Belles in the opener, the Lady Mustangs trailed by eight at the half on the way to a 60-41 loss.
Forrest City will play Russellville Wednesday at 5:30 p.m., in the three-game guarantee tournament, which concludes on Saturday.
Both teams played even through the first period, ending in a 13-13 tie to start the second period. MSM took a 27-19 lead at the half and stretched that to 37-25 to start the final period.
"Overall, I was not disappointed in the game at all," Jayroe said. "Several players showed that they are hungry to win this year, especially Viveca Kimble and Trinia Wynne. Losing by 19 is not pleasant, but the things we did wrong are things that can be corrected and we will start today doing that."
Wynne led the Lady Mustangs with 12 points while Kimble added nine and Sequoria Grady finished with eight. Nicole Parker added five while Torrie Willis finished with three points.
Turnovers hurt the Lady Mustangs committed 16 turnovers, most in the second half.
The JV Lady Mustangs will play Marianna Friday night at Mustang Arena in a three-game set that includes the JV and varsity Mustangs.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
A year ago, the Forrest City Mustangs spent the season trying to prove everyone wrong. This season, which begins tonight at Little Rock Central, the Mustangs are trying to prove everyone right.
Last season, the Mustangs weren't given much consideration as the high school basketball season opened. The team persevered and overcame season-long obstacles to make the Class AAAAA state tournament. A solid showing against then fourth-ranked El Dorado in the first round left the Mustangs hungry for what might have been and anxiously awaiting their next chance.
This year the preseason talk centers around the Mustangs being conference contenders in the AAAAA-East with another trip to the state tournament waiting in the wings. This time, the Mustangs would like to extend that state tournament visit and will use this year to prove the people right.
Forrest City, after playing in a preseason jamboree Saturday at Pine Bluff, will take on the Central Tigers tonight at Central.
It's a road game carefully designed by head coach Dwight Lofton, with a two-fold purpose.
"First, it serves as a much-needed preparation for the Rumble on the Ridge tournament," Lofton said. "Because we always face high caliber talent for those three days. Second, the AAAAA-East coaches are trying to beef up their non-conference schedules this year to make the entire league better which will help the teams in postseason."
Lofton also said tonight's game will be used to evaluate the players and to answer some questions as to which combinations of players will work well on the floor and in what situations to use which combinations.
There's also a little matter of a very large chip still be shouldered by Lofton and the Mustangs, left there by the first-round loss to Central during the 1999-2000 season at the state tournament.
That was the year when the Tigers were the recipient of a time out call by the officials just when it appeared that the Mustangs had come away with a clean steal with the game knotted at 57-57.
The time out took away the apparent steal and Central worked the inbounds play for a shot at the buzzer to win the game.
Tonight, Lofton will start two seniors -- Buck Braddock and Lorenzo Spearmon along with two juniors, Taurus Moore and Nick Grady and one sophomore, Cameron Henderson.
He has at least five more potential starters on the bench which means plenty of depth this season.
"There may be times this season when we might play against a better five," Lofton added. "But I doubt we will play against a better 10."
Lofton expects Central to come at them full throttle, but then again, that is what he is hoping for.
"We need to see it all," Lofton said. "I won't ask for any quarter and I hope they don't give us any."
At Pine Bluff Saturday, the Mustangs defeated Pine Bluff 28-18 in two quarters, using a 10-0 run to close out the game.
The team then defeated Little Rock McClellan 45-19 in two quarters of action.
The Mustangs will host Marianna Friday at Mustang Arena.
PARAGOULD -- Pauline Love pumped in 22 points and pulled down 18 rebounds and Rivercrest used a big second half to top Jonesboro 57-50 Monday in senior girls' basketball at the Coke Classic at Greene County Tech.
In other action at the Coke Classic, host Greene County Tech raced past Blytheville 73-53.
Jonesboro (1-1) led 22-16 at the half but Rivercrest outscored the Lady Hurricane 22-13 in the final period to pick up the victory.
Jackie Gilbert led Jonesboro with 19 points while Rachel Allison chipped in 10 and Aquasha Anderson eight.
Kenya Moore led Blytheville with 16 points while Whitney Jones scored 12 and Shunqetta Shade 10.
*The Wynne Junior Lady Jackets took a 24-17 victory over Annie Camp in junior girls' basketball Monday night and in junior boys action, Searcy pulled away from MacArthur for a 52-41 victory Monday night.