POCAHONTAS — Pocahontas girls basketball coach Harlan Davis has been coaching 32 years. He said he’s had some teams who were close over the years, but nothing like this year’s squad.
And that close-knit family won a state championship.
The Lady Redskins finished the 2016-17 season on a 23-game winning streak as they beat Pottsville 54-46 in overtime in the Class 4A state-title game March 11 at Bank of the Ozarks Arena in Hot Springs. Pocahontas ended the season with a 33-3 record.
“We had 11 kids on our team,” Davis said. “Those 11 are all contributing players. They may not have gotten a lot of game time, but they did so much. That was key that 11 could contribute, especially in practice. This is as close-knit a group as I’ve ever coached.
“That is a really big statement. I’ve had some other teams that I thought were extremely close. I’ve been blessed my entire coaching career to be around a lot of great kids.”
Those 11 players are seniors Ashlyn Ellis, Anna Baltz, Kristen Wiseman, Serena Sisco and Nicole Throesch; juniors Natalie Toney, Katelyn Bigger, Morgan Baker and Makayla Kirk; and sophomores Allana Sisco and Rylie Mangold.
Davis said Baltz said that she never heard a negative comment come out of any player’s mouth.
“They are just an extremely tight, close-knit group,” Davis said. “I think that was the biggest reason that they had the success they did.”
The Lady Redskins had all the pieces to the puzzle in their starting lineup, Davis said.
Ellis started at point guard. She averaged 18 points and 4.5 assists per game.
“She has got of lot of skill,” Davis said. “She’s a really good playmaker and sees the floor extremely well. She’s always been a really good scorer. She’s become an even better passer this year.”
Two other guards who started were Toney and Baltz.
“Natalie is such a worker and an athlete,” Davis said. “She won a state championship in track in the hurdles last year.”
Davis said Baltz had an interesting story to get onto the court.
“She’s a kid who went through an ACL injury a couple of years ago,” he said. “She was a really big contributor on our junior high team. Then she had the ACL injury. It seemed like it really bothered her when she came back. About a year, year and a half ago, she threw her knee brace away and just started playing.
“She did so much for us this year. She’s a good shooter.”
Pocahontas was blessed with two talented post players in Wiseman and Kirk, the coach said.
“They did a really good job of letting the guards create things and staying around the basket,” Davis said. “They are tremendous rebounders.”
Wiseman averaged 13.5 points and 10 rebounds per game. Kirk averaged eight points and 10 boards a game.
The seeds for the state-title run may have been sown a year ago when the Lady Redskins failed to make it to the Class 4A State Tournament.
Pocahontas was a top seed in the Class 4A East Region Tournament last season when the team lost to fourth-seed Central Arkansas Christian in the first round, ending the Lady Redskins’ season. CAC’s Christyn Williams scored 33 of her team’s 49 points in a 49-45 victory.
“We had an extremely successful season last year,” Davis said. “We knew that CAC was going to be a tough draw because Williams is such a good player. Taking nothing away from them because they got to the state finals, but we didn’t feel we played as well as we could. Naturally, I’m sure that CAC was a big reason for that.
“I had a feeling that this group could be as good, if not better than last year’s. From the beginning, we knew that we could compete with anybody. As the year went on, all the pieces to the puzzle just fit together.”
Davis said his team’s schedule featured games against 19 teams that played in their respective state tournaments.
“Hoxie was in our blended league, and we had two state champions come out of our conference with us, and Hoxie, and that was kind of unique,” Davis said. Hoxie won the Class 3A State Championship.
Against Pottsville in the state title game, the Lady Redskins trailed in much of regulation play. But Pocahontas outscored the Lady Apaches 8-5 in the fourth quarter and 13-5 in overtime to secure its first state championship since 1996 and its third overall.
“We didn’t feel like we had a lot of weaknesses,” Davis said. “Our biggest strength is that we were able to get to the rim. I told our boys coach, Anthony Brewington, that if somebody gets back in a zone and just really concentrates on not letting us get to the rim, I think that is going to be somebody’s best chance to be able to beat us. People really didn’t do that until the state-championship game.”
Davis said Pottsville coach Chance Johnson had the best game plan as any team had this season.
“They did a really good job,” he said. “A lot of teams would really try to contain Ellis. She is really good with the basketball. Throughout the state tournament and throughout the year, people had tried to contain her with two people and pressing her to get the ball out of her hands. What Pottsville did was contain her with two playing softly, and they wouldn’t let her get around them. That gave us some problems at first. We turned the ball over a little early in the game. That was very uncharacteristic of our team.”
Pottsville had long guards, Davis said.
“That bothered us as far as trying to throw over the top of it,” he said. “Even if we didn’t throw it away, it slowed things down. We were having to set up in some half-court offense. Being in the half court, [Pottsville] got back in the zone, and they did a really good job in the first half of not letting us get to the rim.”
Davis said his team was able to keep it close in the first half by hitting some 3-pointers. Pottsville led 24-19 at halftime.
“It could have been a 10-, 12-, 15-point game at halftime,” Davis said. “In the second half, we did a better job of getting to the rim. I think in the second half, we did a better job of containing them and not letting them get to the rim.”
Ellis, who was named the state tournament’s most valuable player, finished with 22 points and two assists. Wiseman had 13 points and 15 rebounds. Kirk had 10 points and 10 boards. Toney and Baltz had four points each. Mangold finished with one point.
For Davis, this was his second state championship as a coach. His Highland Lady Rebels beat Ozark 55-53 to win the Class AAA title in 2002 at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
“These are the only two times I’ve been to the state-championship game,” Davis said. “The groups were very similar in the respect that they were really tight-knit groups.”
An odd piece of trivia is that Davis won his first state title 15 years into his high school coaching career. He won his second title 15 years later.
“The first time you get there, it’s so exciting, and we won it on a buzzer beater,” he said. “There was so much excitement with that. I made the statement that I was really excited with the kids in that first one.”
Davis had a different perspective on this year’s state title.
“This time, being a bit older and being in the coaching field a lot longer, I got to sit back and see the kids,” he said. “You enjoy it with them, but you enjoy it for them. It was a lot easier to step back and watch the kids. Maybe it had something to do with the type of team this was.”
Staff writer Mark Buffalo can be reached at (501) 399-3676 or mbuffalo@arkansasonline.com.