PEARCY -- J.A. Fair was fortunate that the mercy rule did not come into play Friday night. If it had, the Lady War Eagles would not have had a chance to outscore Lake Hamilton for the entire second half despite the 61-38 loss at Lake Hamilton's Wolf Arena.
The Lady War Eagles (1-12, 0-3 5A-South) put up 14 points in each of the final two periods while giving up 11 to Lake Hamilton (10-4, 3-0) to cut a 39-10 deficit to as little as 21 points.
Lake Hamilton head coach Blake Condley allowed his starters to play an average of just 13 minutes each in the game with senior Jenny Peake putting in over 14:30 on the court. All five started the second half, but they returned to the bench with 1:27 off the clock with just minimal time on the court for the remainder of the game.
"We've been working on some things in practice," Condley said. "I told the girls we wanted to see if we had gotten better at those things tonight, and I thought we did.
"We're working on some things defensively, just some fundamentals -- just staying in a stance, communicating, making sure we're blocking out when the shot goes up."
The Lady War Eagles put points on the scoreboard first in the second half as senior guard Keyonna Winston put up a bucket with 35 seconds ticked off the game clock, but the Lady Wolves put up four points over the next 40 seconds to stretch the lead out to 43-12. Fair pulled the deficit back down to 26 by the 4:25 mark, but the Lady Wolves hit a 6-0 stretch to hit their largest lead of the game, 50:18, with 1:00 left in the third frame.
The Lady War Eagles hit a 6-0 run of their own to eliminate the start of the mercy rule with the inbounds pass to start the final period, pulling within 50-24.
"It's like I couldn't get five at a time to go," said J.A. Fair head coach Shirley Goodnight. "We could get three to go hard, and somebody would get out of position.
"I've got two or three seniors, but the rest of them are ninth- and 10th-graders. It's just a big stretch for some of the complicated things we're trying to do."
A bucket by Nariah Samuels cut Fair's deficit to 24 with 6:18 left in the game, but sophomore Bre Nash hit a trey off an assist from classmate Taylor Humphreys 22 seconds later to push back out to a 27-point lead, 53-26.
After senior forward Avianna Turner-Miles was fouled and made one of two shots from the line at the 5:28 mark, she stole the ball and made a bucket. Senior guard Jada Evans followed suit with a takeaway and bucket of her own 10 seconds later to pull within 53-31 with 5:02 to go in the game.
Lake Hamilton pulled out to a 24-point lead three times in the period, but the Lady War Eagles never gave up, pulling within 59-38 with 36 seconds remaining. Lake Hamilton junior Meg Harrison put up a shot with 4 seconds remaining to set the final score.
The Lady Wolves rattled off 11 straight points in the opening quarter, including a pair of treys by sophomore Aspen Thornton and one by senior Nya Moody before Evans put up Fair's only points of the quarter with 2:15 to go. The Lady Wolves added nine more points to close the opening period with a 20-2 lead.
"We started off discombobulated," Goodnight said. "One of my starters, at the last minute, couldn't come. We didn't know until we were getting on the bus, so that kind of got us off to a rough start. We were starting a person in a post position that doesn't play post because my other post girl is a ninth-grader, who came in and did a really good job when I put her in.
"We got frustrated early. I thought we played well the second half. I thought we played really hard and looked like we knew what we were doing a little bit. We just dug ourselves in a hole too bad, I thought, and they were hot on those threes."
A pair of 3-pointers by Peake helped push the Lady Wolves to a 30-6 lead at the 4:17 mark, but 30 seconds later, the Lady War Eagles cut the lead back down to 21 points. A pair of treys by Nash helped give Lake Hamilton a 27-point lead, and Harrison put up a shot for two to secure the 39-10 halftime lead.
The Lady Wolves made it a point to share the ball, dishing out 13 assists on the night.
"I feel like it has started the couple of previous games, but on offense I feel like we're sharing the ball well," Condley said. "There were some times when I thought girls could have taken shots, and they're making an extra pass and setting their teammate up. I'm just really proud of how we're coming together as a group and as a team like that."
"It's not necessarily something that we've talked about," Condley added. "We've been trying to have that mindset of 'We want our five girls to be better than the other team's five girls.' Instead of it being one girl, two girls, three -- we want all of us. ... That's what we're really focusing on and what we want to do."
Sophomore Aryn Hughes and Thornton led the Lady Wolves with 12 points apiece. Thornton had three rebounds, two steals and two assists, and Hughes pulled down five rebounds before fouling out.
Nash and sophomore starter Tia Mullenix added nine each, with Mullenix's all coming in the opening quarter. Nash had three assists and a rebound, and Mullenix had two rebounds. Peake dished out three assists with a steal, a block and a rebound, while Moody had three rebounds with two steals and Taylor Humphreys had three assists, two rebounds and took two charges.
Nariah Samuels led the Lady War Eagles with 12 points and nine rebounds. Winston added 10 points with two rebounds, and the 5-1 Evans had six points with eight rebounds and four steals.
"She's a go-getter," Goodnight said of Evans. "She's my point guard. She was injured all of last year and didn't get to play at all. She got hurt during volleyball.
"This is her first year back. We put a lot on her, and she takes a lot on herself. She got a little frustrated the first half because she didn't feel like her teammates were playing hard enough."
Lake Hamilton will travel to Hot Springs (7-6, 3-0) Tuesday to take on the only other 5A-South team that is undefeated in conference play.
Sports on 01/13/2019