Dusting off golden oldie: LH vs. Troy

A most unnatural setting for a basketball game is host Tuesday night to one of Garland County's most anticipated matchups in years.

Trojan Fieldhouse, for lack of a better name, lies within Hot Springs High School. It's one of only three basketball gymnasiums in Garland County still open and when I started at this newspaper in 1980. I speak from experience that it's one of the worst venues to cover a game, but that when the right teams are on the floor there's no place I'd rather be.

Lake Hamilton comes to Trojan Fieldhouse for a varsity doubleheader that showcases boys and girls teams on both sides with perfect conference records. Local bragging rights would be cause enough to guarantee a full house but the 5A-South lead also is on the line in each game. Surely you can tear yourself away from a televised Razorback game against Tennessee.

They'll play again Feb. 8, on a Friday night, at Lake Hamilton Wolf Arena, where the host school got cheering news last week as the only bidder for early rounds of the Class 5A tournament. With the championship games at Bank OZK Arena, Lake Hamilton's teams need not leave Garland County after Valentine's Day barring weather-related reschedulings. It's the second time in three years that Lake Hamilton has hosted a state tournament with future Razorbacks Daniel Gafford, of El Dorado, and Desi Sills, of Jonesboro, strutting their stuff at the 6A clambake in 2017.

Going farther down memory lane, the 1997-98 season produced two of the best games ever played in Garland County, Hot Springs beating Lake Hamilton home and away. Hot Springs, coached by the late Alvin Corder, won its second state title in three years on a buzzer shot against Greenwood by LaJuan Christon. Greenwood, then coached by former Cutter Morning Star head man Lance Taylor, beat Lake Hamilton in a triple-overtime semifinal on the Bulldogs' home court.

After a December game in Fort Smith, Southside coach Jerry Bridges told an old friend, "There's only three teams that can win it," listing Greenwood, Hot Springs and Lake Hamilton in no particular order. Bridges, a state-championship winner at Caddo Hills and Morrilton (later at Cabot before retiring after last season), had inside information about one of the teams, his brother Jamie coaching Lake Hamilton.

Lake Hamilton has won only one state title in boys' basketball but is unlucky not to have won three in a row in the mid-1990s. The 1996 squad lost in the finals to Hot Springs, the first state title for Corder since winning one as a player -- for Lake Hamilton in 1963. The '96 Wolves included Christon, then a sophomore, who transferred to Hot Springs for his last two seasons.

With Christon filling it up from outside and Jermaine Dobbins a dynamic player inside, the '98 Trojans were nearly unstoppable. Nothing less would suffice against a Lake Hamilton squad with Alan Puckett and Scott Walston. The '98 Wolves played with a mindset of unfinished business after losing in the previous year's championship game to conference rival Magnolia, which Lake Hamilton handled easily in the regular season.

One could read the brackets early and see that Hot Springs or Lake Hamilton likely would play Greenwood in the state semifinals. The county rivals' two games in the regular season thus took on added weight. In almost 40 years on the job, I've not seen better basketball played by local teams. For whatever reason, Hot Springs had an edge, and after a close game at Trojan Fieldhouse, I exchanged a knowing nod with Marguerite Puckett, mother of Lake Hamilton's star player and a longtime friend, that in losing that night, the Wolves had let the genie out of the bottle.

Hot Springs, it may be remembered, won dual state championships in basketball in the 1997-98 season, Jim Elser's Lady Trojans for the second-straight year. Hot Springs had two future Lady Razorbacks, Joy Oakley and Shameka Christon (LaJuan's sister), but had to forfeit some games in midseason after reporting an ineligible player. Hot Springs played the second half of the season under almost sudden-death pressure, knowing that one more defeat could keep the defending champions home in March.

In a tremendous display of clutch basketball, the Lady Trojans made the state tournament as the No. 4 seed from its conference. Hot Springs drew Greene County Tech in the first round and promptly thumped the top-seeded Lady Eagles, who beat the Lady Trojans in the '96 final on a buzzer shot.

In the post-game press conference, I could not wait to ask the losing coach, "When did you know that Hot Springs would be Southwest 4?"

Elevating sore losing to an art form, veteran coach Ted Cunningham said it was all unfair and that his proud team suffered "irreparable harm" that day. Cunningham was still wound up about the '98 game almost a decade later when reporter Jeff Halpern brought it up after Greene County Tech beat Hot Springs in the state tournament.

Until Cunningham retired, Halpern and I raised a silent toast (to, what else, irreparable harm) whenever GCT suffered a season-ending loss. Who says sportswriters don't care about the teams they cover?

Hot Springs vs. Lake Hamilton is for my successors on the sports desk. I'm booked that night to cover Fountain Lake vs. Jessieville, two other local schools that can raise the temperature on a winter night. Bundle up, if need be, and by all means, don't be late.

Sports on 01/14/2019

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