By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
A first-half Forrest City run away turned into a fourth period dog fight Friday night at Mustang Arena.
Leading by as many as 20 points in the first half, Forrest City held off a scrappy Searcy Lions teams to hold on for a 65-55 win in AAAAA-East Conference play.
The Forrest City win leaves the team in fifth place but more importantly it makes Tuesday's home game against Jacksonville the single most important game of the conference season to date.
Jacksonville is barely holding on to fourth place. A Mustang win Tuesday would force a tie for the fourth spot, which would help get them into the Class AAAAA state tournament at North Little Rock.
A loss to Jacksonville would almost certainly mean the Mustangs would have to defeat Mountain Home on the road Friday and get the home win over Jonesboro in the season-ending game.
Against Searcy, Forrest City opened a 15-6 lead after one period and led at the half 31-22.
The Mustangs pushed that lead to 15 points midway through the third period before settling for a 10-point cushion, 48-38 to start the fourth period.
Then things got messy, especially for the Mustangs.
Forrest City went almost three minutes before putting up their next points as Searcy scored the first three points of the final period to get within 48-41.
Taurus Moore's three put Forrest City back to 51-41.
Searcy cut the Forrest City lead to six with two minutes left to play and again with 1:13 to play as the Mustangs scrambled to maintain their lead.
That was when Moore stepped up -- to the foul line six times in the final minute to drop in five of his chances, pushing the Mustang lead back to 63-52 with 32 seconds to play.
Searcy's final field goal was answered on the other end by Lorenzo Spearmon's two pointer as the Mustangs went on to take the 10-point win.
"We needed to win by 10 and that's what we got," said Forrest City Coach Dwight Lofton. "We needed the 10 points in case we end up in a tie for the fourth spot. That will help us with a tie-breaker situation. Of course, the bottom line is we need to win two of our final three games."
The game was almost a carbon-copy of the first meeting between the two teams played in January at Searcy when Forrest City took a big lead but had to hold off the Lions late for a 58-54 win.
Spearmon led the Mustangs with 19 points while sophomore forward Cameron Henderson had 17 points.
Moore finished with 12 points while Jarvis Palmer had a strong game for the Mustangs, adding
nine points.
Senior center Buck Braddock helped with eight points. Brandon Lynch led Searcy with 26 points while Kyle Wray added 15 points.
Searcy hit 11-of-21 free throws while the Mustangs hit 15-of-28 chances from the foul line.
The Mustangs were consistent in each period scoring 15 points in the first, 16 in the second and 17 each in the third and fourth.
Both the Forrest City Lady Mustangs and the Searcy Lady Lions went into Friday's conference game with several key players missing due to injuries.
The Lady Lions had a little more in reserve than the Lady Mustangs did and used that to take a 55-43 win at Mustang Arena.
Searcy led 12-6 after the first period but the Lady Mustangs battled back to cut the Searcy lead to 25-22 at the half.
Searcy regained control of he game in the third to lead 40-33 to start the final frame.
Sequoria Grady led the Lady Mustangs with 15 points while Deandria Washington finished with 10. Trina Wynne had nine and Viveca Kimble finished with six points.
The Searcy JV girls defeated Forrest City's JV team 26-12. Anita McDonald had five points for Forrest City.
Forrest City will host Jacksonville Tuesday.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Central Baptist's height advantage paid off against the Calvary Christian in the finals of the MACS elementary basketball tournament Friday at Calvary.
The third-seeded Calvary elementary Eagles led 4-0 early and 8-2 to end the first period Central Baptist, the No. 1 seed, took their first lead at 10-8 in the second period and with the exception of a 10-10 tie, never trailed and never looked back on the way to a 40-28 win.
Seth Smith and Williams Burks accounted for all of Calvary's 28 points with Smith scoring 20 and Burks hitting eight.
Calvary led 14-12 at the half and then kicked their offense into high gear in the third to outscore the Eagles 15-to-4 to lead 29-16 at the end of the third.
Burks hit back-to-back baskets to help get the Eagles back within 11 points at 33-22 with 3:33 left in the game.
Smith's steal and basket got the Eagles closer still at 33-24 before Central pushed the lead back to 37-26 and Brandon Bradford drove home the final nail with a three pointer with 54 seconds to play to give Central a 40-26 lead.
Michael Miller led Central with 13 points while Ryan Woods added 11.
In other Calvary news from Friday, Calvary's Summer Hess was named to the All Conference Second Team and Mary Burks was named to the All-Tournament Team.
The Central Baptist elementary girls defeated Westminster in their tournament final.
Calvary's elementary girls team was given the tournament's sportsmanship trophy.
The Calvary junior high boys and girls basketball teams will open play at the MACS Junior High Conference Tournament this week. The tournament will be played at Central Baptist.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
Beginning today, Forrest City will host the AAAAA-East Conference Tournament, which will feature seven junior high boys and seven junior high girls teams vying for the tournament championship.
The tournament will continue through Friday, Feb. 20 with games scheduled for tonight, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Admission to the tournament is $3 per person.
Sandwiched in between, on Tuesday, the Forrest City High School basketball teams will host Jacksonville.
The Forrest City Junior High teams completed their regular season schedule last Thursday at Annie Camp.
The Forrest City Junior Lady Mustangs will go against Jonesboro MacArthur tonight at 7 p.m. in the first round game for both teams.
Forrest City is the sixth seed into the bracket while MacArthur wears the No. 3seed. The winner moves on to play the Blytheville-West Memphis East winner on Thursday.
The Junior Mustangs, seeded second, will open play Wednesday at 7 p.m., when they face West Memphis West at 7 p.m.
Last Tuesday, Jonesboro MacArthur wrapped up the regular-season conference title and earned the No. 1 seed into the boys' bracket. Forrest City and MacArthur split their two regular season games with the Junior Mustangs winning at Mustang Arena and MacArthur winning in Jonesboro.
MacArthur received a first-round bye and will open play Thursday, Feb. 19, at 5 p.m., against the Annie Camp-West Memphis East winner.
The Junior Mustangs completed a 10-2 season in the league and will be trying to reach the tournament finals for the second straight year.
As the Blue Mustangs a year ago, the team got to the finals only to lose to West Memphis West.
The Palestine-Wheatley Lady Patriots will open play tonight in the 6AA district tournament at Altheimer.
The fifth-seeded Lady Patriots will face sixth-seeded Elaine tonight at 7 p.m.
Palestine-Wheatley defeated Elaine in both regular season conference games.
Tonight's winner will move on to face second-seeded Altheimer Wednesday.
The P-W Junior High teams both play Tuesday games while the senior boys open Thursday.
The Hughes Blue Devils and Lady Blue Devils will open play tonight at the 3AA South District Tournament at Earle.
The Lady Blue Devils will take on Crawfordsville at 7 p.m., while the Blue Devils will play Crawfordsville at 8:30 p.m.
The tournament continues through Friday with the top four teams moving on to regionals.