Friday’s highlights NLR rallies, rolls
After trailing 7-0 early, North Little Rock rebounded to take a 35-13 halftime lead and cruised to a 5726 victory over Little Rock Catholic.
NORTH LITTLE ROCK 57, LITTLE ROCK CATHOLIC 26
Less than two minutes into Friday night’s game, North Little Rock Coach Johnny Rice had seen enough.
Rice, who picked up his 200th win at the helm of the Charging Wildcats on Tuesday, signaled for a timeout with his team down 7-0.
Fourteen minutes of game action later, North Little Rock carried a 35-13 advantage into the locker room and looked all the part of a Class 6A contender, cruising to a 57-26 win against Little Rock Catholic at Rocket Gym.
Once the Charging Wildcats broke free of their early funk, they got to the rim at will — six different players scored at least five points, with junior Kelel Ware’s 10 leading the pack — and hounded the Rockets on the defensive end. Little Rock Catholic shot 10 of 42 from the field and scored just 6 points over an 18-minute span stretching from North Little Rock’s early timeout to the middle of the third quarter.
“We were just playing soft,” Rice said of his team’s sluggish start. “We had no eagerness, no urgency about us. … We were just going through the motions, and that’s the same way we started last Friday.”
That slow start didn’t cost the Charging Wildcats a week ago when they earned their first conference win at Conway, but it proved fatal a few days before that in a loss to Little Rock Central.
Since then, North Little Rock (9-1, 3-1 6A-Central) has picked up where it left off in 2020, when it won its first six games.
The Charging Wildcats’ lone defeat has them chasing Little Rock Central in the 6A-Central, but the result seemed to emphasize what they needed to get right.
“We all just learned that we have to come out playing tough,” Ware said. “We come out tough and get the lead from the beginning, we can win every game.”
Perhaps it’s that simple — at least for the 7-foot Ware, who had 8 inches on the tallest player from Little Rock Catholic (6-8, 1-3).
After North Little Rock struggled to get the ball into its center in the opening minutes, Rice’s team adjusted. Instead of forcing it inside, the Charging Wildcats leaned on their guard play, taking advantage of driving lanes and easy mid-range jumpers to turn what looked like it might be a competitive battle into a rout.
Ware had plenty of impact on both ends, adding 5 blocks and 6 rebounds to go along with his game-high 10 points. North Little Rock seniors D.J. Smith and Tracy Steele, along with sophomore Kelon Jackson, added nine apiece.
That outpaced the Rockets’ top scorer, junior Benjamin Biernat, who finished with eight points and five boards.
“I told D.J. a little bit in the second half to play like a point guard to where he’s got to get us into something,” Rice said of Smith, who leads the team in scoring at more than 20 points per game. “Earlier in the year, there were times when he had to score. … Tonight, we had a lot of people contribute and what we want to do is keep the pressure on [our opponents].”
That depth could pay dividends in the coming weeks, as the Charging Wildcats will get their lone crack at Bryant on Jan. 26 before a critical rematch against Little Rock Central in early February.