Wampus Cats pounce on War Eagles

ROGERS — Conway Coach Brian “Salty” Longing acknowledged his Wampus Cats’ execution isn’t exactly razor-sharp, but they wreaked havoc defensively on Rogers Heritage to earn a 61-46 win over the War Eagles on Saturday evening to claim the Orange Division of the 16th annual Arvest Hoopfest at War Eagle Arena.

“We’re so small we have to get into people and guard,” Longing said. “Right now, we got 12 football kids in a week and a half ago, so they’ve had four practices. So we play defense really hard and we foul really hard.

“That’s gonna get better. We want to be aggressive. We want to get after it, but we gotta clean some of that up. We’re not real pretty right now, but the kids are playing hard. We try to get it done by committee.”

Conway (6-0) may still be working out the kinks but also claimed its second tournament title in consecutive weekends, after winning a tourney in Hot Springs last weekend.

The Wampus Cats, who have five of their top 10 players just coming out of football, led 27-17 at halftime and never trailed in the second half. They clamped down on Heritage guard Micah Hill, who finished with 32 points and a tournament-record nine three-pointers on Friday. Hill finished with a game-high 15, but just three three-pointers as the Conway defense hounded him consistently. He was Heritage’s only player in double figures.

Heritage (4-5) also hit 14 three-pointers as a team on Friday, but Hill was the only War Eagle to make one on Saturday.

Heritage Coach Tom Olsen said Conway’s defense was no question the difference, but that wasn’t the only thing the Wampus Cats did well.

“We got to a point in the game where we couldn’t really run anything, so we just thought we’ll try to break them down and find a matchup,” Olsen said. “We had a little success. But then in the second half when we really needed a stop, they’d get a second chance.

Conway did it with balance offensively as seniors Traland McClure and Dwayne Lockhart led the way with 11 points each. Keiron Duncan, a 6-1 post player, also chipped in 10.

Heritage got to within 5446 with 2:20 left, but never scored again.