If there was anything good Bentonville West's boys could find about the latest winter weather layoffs, it could be that it allowed the Wolverines to hold on to sole possession of the top spot in the 6A-West Conference standings.
The flip side of that though is West (18-7, 7-1) will have its endurance tested with a five-game stretch over the next eight days, starting tonight as the Wolverines are scheduled to travel to Fort Smith Northside.
"The last thing I told our guys was to just enjoy being a kid," West coach Greg White said. "But I also let them know that when they stepped back in here, it's time to go.
"But everybody is in the same situation right now. It's going to be interesting over the next few days."
West reclaimed sole possession of first place in the league standings in its last game, a 59-21 win over Rogers Heritage, while Bentonville and Springdale suffered losses that night. The Wolverines, however, will follow tonight's game with a Saturday makeup home game against Fayetteville.
Next week won't be much easier as West has home games Tuesday against Bentonville and Wednesday against Rogers. The Wolverines then end the stretch next Friday with a game at Springdale.
"This is where the teams start shaking out," White said. "And you have the teams near the top that are facing each other, so it's about to be a lot of fun.
"We're at the point of the season where coaches are shortening their practices, and we've adapted the phrase "healthy and happy. There is no clear-cut winner in the state this year, so we're all going to have to adapt and adjust and figure out some things pretty quick."
LAMAR
Too many games, too little time
Lamar's girls find themselves in a somewhat difficult predicament with only a few days left in the regular season.
The Lady Warriors, who lead the 3A-5 Conference with an 8-0 league record, have six conference games left to play and only five of them are currently scheduled.
"We have too many games and not enough days to play them," Lamar coach Brandon Schluterman said.
Lamar (17-2 overall) has a game scheduled tonight at Maumelle Charter, then it returns home Saturday to face Atkins in a game that was postponed Tuesday because the weather. The Lady Warriors will travel to Monday to face Dover, then play Tuesday against Central Arkansas Christian before traveling Thursday to Mayflower.
The sixth game, a contest against Perryville that was originally scheduled for Jan. 20 but was postponed following the death of a Lady Warrior player, remains up in the air at the moment as the two schools must agree upon a suitable playing date.
"I don't like the idea of having to play games on four straight nights," Schluterman said. "But our district tournament is scheduled to start the following Saturday (Feb. 11).
"We're hoping the tournament can be moved back to a Monday start so we can have extra time to get in these games. If not, then that's what we'll have to do."
-- Henry Apple
GREENLAND
Pirates clamp down on opponents
Several factors are needed to produce a string of victories but Greenland coach Jared Goble can point to one primary factor for the Pirates' current seven-game winning streak.
Defense. Plain and simple.
"We can shoot it. We've made as many as 12 3-pointers in a game," Goble said. "But you're not always going to shoot it like that. The difference for us is that we've been guarding really well. We've got a bunch of tough kids who guard their tails off."
Greenland (11-6, 10-1) needs just one more win in its next three games to clinch the 2A-1 Conference championship and the top seed for the conference tournament at Eureka Springs. Greenland is scheduled to play at Ozark Mountain tonight, weather permitting.
The Pirates then face Life Way Christian on Feb. 7 before meeting Haas Hall-Rogers in a makeup game on Feb. 9.
Greenland's roster consists of eight seniors and seven sophomores with no juniors. Like many small schools, Greenland relies on athletes from football to fill out its basketball roster. That explains Greenland's slow start when the Pirates played the first two or three games with only players who went through pre-season drills.
But Greenland is rolling now with top players like seniors like Kade Goble and Zach Holte, who hit a 3-pointer with 2 seconds left to beat Cotter on Jan. 28.
-- Rick Fires
LAVACA
Defending champs surging again
Lavaca is primed for another postseason run after winning the boys Class 2A state championship by beating Magnet Cove 50-34 in the championship game last spring in Hot Springs.
The Golden Arrows beat Mansfield last Saturday to give themselves a three-game lead with three 2A-4 conference games left to play. Lavaca was scheduled to play Future School Thursday night, where a win would've clinched another outright conference championship for the Golden Arrows, who carried a 9-game winning streak into the game. Jedson Wagner leads Lavaca in scoring at 13.2 points per game and Alex Hobbs is second at 11.0 points per game.
"We're playing really well together as a team," Lavaca coach Renner Reed said. "Early on, we were relying a lot on Jedson Wagner and Alex Hobbs for our scoring but others are starting to chip in. Andrew Johnson, our sixth man, came off the bench against Mansfield and led us in scoring with 18 points.
"We don't have a lot of high-volume scorers but we've got a lot of guys who can do the job."
Weather permitting, Lavaca is scheduled to face Hector today before completing conference play next week against Western Yell County and Acorn.
"Our energy is really high and we're healthy," Reed said. "We're peaking at the right time."
-- Rick Fires
RIVER VALLEY GAME OF THE WEEK
Charleston, Cedarville clash in 3A-4 showdown
Charleston travels to Cedarville tonight for a key boys game in the 3A-4.
Charleston (7-3, 7-1), Paris (13-7, 8-2) and Cedarville (11-11, 8-3) are bunched up at the top of the conference standings with Booneville (10-5, 6-3) also close.
Booneville handed Charleston its first conference defeated last week when Jace Washburn scored with 12 seconds left, and Raiden Ferguson drew a charge with 2.4 seconds left on the defensive end to seal a 48-47 win.
“They’re all big for us right now,” Charleston coach B.J. Ross said. “We had won seven games in a row and had a slip up the other night. We knew it was about to happen. Our last three games we went overtime, overtime and lost by one. It was our own self-inflicted wounds, what we did to ourselves.”
The Tigers had to postpone conference games in December due to the football team making its championship run into mid-December.
Beginning with Thursday’s trip to Danville, Charleston will play six conference games in nine days. Next week, Charleston travels to Two Rivers on Monday, hosts Paris on Tuesday, travels to Hackett on Friday and Saturday travel to Cossatot River.
The two positions in the conference standings are important since the top two earn berths into the semifinals of the 3A-4 district tournament at Paris along with an automatic berth into the Class 3A Region 1 Tournament at West Fork.
5A-WEST
The 5A-West is scrambling to still schedule the games from January 24.
The entire conference just penciled those games into the built-in make-up date of January 31, but those games were also postponed due to this week’s winter weather.
Now, Alma will host Greenwood on Feb. 8 along with Siloam Springs traveling to Van Buren. That’s in addition to the regularly scheduled games on Feb. 7 and Feb. 10, making a three-game week for all the team in the conference.
Today, Van Buren hosts Greenbrier, Alma hits the long road to Harrison, and Greenwood travels to Russellville.
6A-WEST
The Battle of Rogers Avenue, round two, will be played on Wednesday, Feb. 8.
The game is part of a five-game stretch in eight days for Northside to begin the final half of the double round-robin schedule in the 6A-West.
The Grizzlies (13-9, 4-4) host league-leading Bentonville West (18-2, 7-1) today, travel to Rogers Heritage on Saturday for a makeup game, travels to Springdale Har-Ber on Feb. 7, travels to Southside on Feb. 8 and hosts Fayetteville on Feb. 10.
For the Lady Bears (17-3, 7-1), the stretch could be a season-defining one.
Har-Ber (13-7, 7-2) and Heritage (17-4, 6-2) loom close behind.
— LELAND BARCLAY
THAT FIGURES
6 Games for Charleston in the 3A-4 over a nine-day stretch, beginning on Thursday
3 Game lead by the Lavaca Golden Arrows with three games to play in the 2A-4
2 Game lead by the Lamar Lady Warriors in the 3A-5 over Dover, which they play on Feb. 6