By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
By grade classification, Cameron Henderson and Jarvis Palmer are both Forrest City sophomores.
But on the basketball court, they are clearly veterans.
Henderson and Palmer combined to score 38 of Forrest City's 69 total points in Tuesday's AAAAA-East Conference win over the Jacksonville Red Devils at Mustang Arena.
Both players finished with 19 points and both got their point totals in different ways. Henderson was the force inside the paint that the Mustangs have been looking for all season long while Palmer did most of his damage on break-away layups and from the foul line, hitting nine free throws in the final two minutes of the game to ensure the Mustangs' 69-59 victory.
The win was huge for the Mustangs, getting Dwight Lofton's team even at 6-6 in the conference and into a fourth-place tie with Jacksonville, also 6-6. Overall, the Mustangs are 14-10 while Jacksonville slips to 10-14.
The 10-point win also gives Forrest City the "tie-breaker" edge should they end in a tie for the final playoff spot with Jacksonville. In the first meeting of the season, played at Jacksonville, the Red Devils won by six points.
Jacksonville will host unbeaten West Memphis on Friday and Mountain Home Tuesday.
The Mustangs travel to Mountain Home Friday and close out the conference season next Tuesday by hosting Jonesboro.
A win over Mountain Home will put the Mustangs back into the Class AAAAA state tournament, which begins March 2 at North Little Rock. A year ago, Forrest City, seeded fourth, took the AAAAA-South's top-seeded team, El Dorado to the very brink of elimination before falling by two points.
Tuesday's game was a typical Forrest City-Jacksonville matchup.
The game saw Forrest City put together its best quarter of the season when Forrest City scored 27 points. That helped the Mustangs to its best half of basketball for the year -- a 38-point first half, topping the previous high of a 33-point first half against Osceola.
The game was marred by six technical fouls being called -- four against Jacksonville and two against Forrest City.
Two of Jacksonville's starting five -- Bretrick Miles and Mike Smith fouled out along with Dean Neely. A third starter, Lavar Neely was ejected from the game after picking up two technical fouls for arguing with the officials.
Both Forrest City technical fouls were minor infractions involving a kicked ball and a wrong entry into the official scorebook.
In almost a carbon copy of last Friday's game against Searcy, Forrest City led 38-20 at the half and then watched their cushion begin to disappear in the third period when Jacksonville put together a 16-to-1 run to get within three points at 39-36. Henderson halted the six minute dry spell by turning a traditional three-point play with 2:34 to play.
Things turned ugly quickly in the fourth period.
After Jacksonville cut the Forrest City lead to just one point twice in the first two minutes of the period at 46-45 and 49-48, senior forward Lorenzo Spearmon hit four straight free throws bunched around Henderson's baseline basket and a free throw by Taurus Moore to get the lead back to 56-48.
That's when Lavar Neely picked up two technical fouls within seconds of each other and was ejected with 2:39 to play. Miles fouled out with two minutes left and Smith was hit with his fourth personal foul.
Going to their "five-game" the Mustangs ran the clock to 1:16 before Palmer was fouled and hit two free throws for a 63-53 lead.
Smith fouled out with the Mustangs holding a 10-point lead with 50 seconds remaining and the Mustangs ran the clock to 36 seconds before Henderson went to the foul line and hit both free throws for a 67-55 lead.
Dean Neely fouled out with 12 seconds showing and Palmer added two more free throws.
Spearmon joined Henderson and Palmer in double figures with 13 points while Chris Williams had seven points.
Sequoria Grady scored a 'quadruple double' Tuesday against Jacksonville with 13 points, 11 rebounds, 10 assists and 10 blocked shots which helped the Forrest City Lady Mustangs to an 81-62 win over the Lady Red Devils.
The win gives the Lady Mustangs a sweep over Jacksonville after winning 80-75 in double overtime last month at Jacksonville.
The Lady Mustangs led 21-18 after one period. Jacksonville took a brief lead in the second period before Forrest City forced a 28-28 tie and then led 32-31 at the half.
Using a 13-to-7 scoring run to begin the second half, the Lady Mustangs led 45-38 with 2:50 left in the period.
They completed the third period by outscoring Jacksonville 24-to-9 and leading 56-40.
It was more of the same in the fourth period as Forrest City got seven points from Crystal Seawood which helped fuel a 7-0 run midway in the period to take Forrest City from 66-51 to 73-51 with 2:20 to play.
Viveca Kimble played one of her best games of the season, finishing with 22 points to lead the Lady Mustangs while Trina Wynne added 20 points and Shari Rogers finished with 17. Seawood ended with nine points.
The Lady Mustangs hit 13-of-21 free throw chances.
By FRED CONLEY
T-H Sports Editor
ALTHEIMER -- Both Palestine-Wheatley Junior High basketball teams reached the semifinals of the 6AA district tournament Tuesday.
The No. 2 seeded Junior Patriots enjoyed a laugher against seventh-seeded Gillett Tuesday, winning 67-17.
P-W eighth-grader Raphael Williams came off the bench to lead the Junior Patriots by scoring 25 points. Phil Hicks finished with 20 points, despite not playing much in the second half and Taylor Clark added 13 points.
The Junior Patriots will face either Clarendon or Barton in Friday's semifinal game at 5:45 p.m.
Also Tuesday, the Junior Lady Patriots, seeded second, used 14 points from Chelsea Jumper to put away Gillett 31-15.
Gabrielle Barnes added seven points and Deidra Ingram had four.
The junior girls will play either Elaine or Barton in Friday's semifinal game at 4 p.m.
The No. 3 seeded Palestine-Wheatley Patriots will open play Thursday night against Marvell. Game time is 8:15 p.m.
Marvell defeated Clarendon Tuesday night to advance.
In Tuesday's senior girls' game, Barton forfeited to Marvell.
The No. 1 seeded Turrell senior boys and girls' teams advanced to the finals of the 3AA South district tournament, being played at Earle.
Turrell's boys defeated Crawfordsville Tuesday to move into Friday's championship game while the Lady Rockets defeated Hughes to get into Friday's title game.
The Hughes Lady Blue Devils defeated Crawfordsville in Monday's first-round game while the Hughes boys lost to Crawfordsville in their first-round game on Monday.
The AAAAA-East Junior High conference tournament resumes play tonight at Mustang Arena.
The No. 2 seeded Forrest City Junior Mustangs will play seventh-seeded West Memphis West at 7 p.m.
The first-round game is a rematch of last year's tournament final, won by West.
The West Memphis Wonder and Blytheville junior boys will play the opening game today at 4 p.m. and the Blytheville and West Memphis East junior girls will play at 5:30 p.m.
Forrest City's Junior Lady Mustangs will return to tournament play Thursday to face the winner of today's Blytheville-WM East game.
The sixth-seeded Junior Lady Mustangs defeated Jonesboro MacArthur Monday night to end a decade long losing streak in post season play.
A crappie fishing tournament will be held Saturday, March 6, at Horseshoe Lake.
Registration for the tournament will begin at 7:30 a.m., at the Kamp Kare Free Restaurant and the departure time to the lake will be at 8 a.m.
Weigh-in for al fishermen will be held at 3 p.m.
Entry fees are $10 per boat and there can be two people to a boat. Cash prizes will be given to the winners and the runners-up.
For more information, call Dennis Wann at 870-702-1064.
The Calvary Christian Junior Eagles lost to Westminster 40-20 Tuesday at the MACS Junior High District Tournament at Central Baptist.
Seth Smith led Calvary with 12 points while Nathan Myers and Taylor Myers had four points each in the game.