Mears clutch for Vilonia at game’s end
CLASS 5A VILONIA 51, MARION 47, OT
PINE BLUFF — Kinley Mears stepped to the freethrow line for the first of two shots coming her way. She knew that as long as she made both, the game was over. Even one miss would require a miracle to keep the game going.
Mears, standing 5-2, is known for her relentless defense, but Saturday afternoon it was her offense that punched Vilonia’s ticket to the Class 5A girls state basketball championship game with a 51-47 overtime victory over Marion at the Pine Bluff Convention Center.
Mears made both, giving the Eagles (28-4) a four-point lead with 0.3 seconds left for Marion (14-15) to work with.
“If there was more than 0.3 seconds, that would have been a lot of pressure,” Mears said. “But I think going up to that line, I knew that either way, if they would have caught it and chunked it, they still wouldn’t have time to score. So I think that took a lot of pressure off of me.”
Mears was one of two Vilonia players to score 15 points, along with Sidni Middleton. Mears was responsible for six of the Lady Eagles’ 10 points in overtime, including the final two to ice the win.
“She always plays great defense for us,” Vilonia Coach Jeremy Simon said. “She’s always got the role of guarding the other team’s best player. Tonight, she played really well offensively. We had to have her. She wanted the ball in her hands there late. She had some opportunities, and she went downhill and made some clutch plays for us.”
With key players Lila Toll and Lexy Heston out with injuries, Vilonia played the same five players for all but two minutes. Three Lady Eagles played the whole game, and Mears was on the court for all but 33 seconds of the semifinal.
“Having two starters out really limits what we can run offensively. Marion does such a good job [defensively], that we really just tried to spread them out and let our guards get downhill,” Simon said. “We didn’t execute any of our sets the way we wanted to, so we just went out and played and tried to spread them out.”
Marion took advantage of that lack of depth by playing eight players 14 minutes or more. The Lady Patriots got 27 points from their bench to the Eagles’ zero thanks to 12-point performances from Aaliyah Taylor and Taylor Little. Kiera Neal also had 12 points for Marion.
GREENWOOD 68, WEST MEMPHIS 57
For the third game in a row, Greenwood allowed its opponent to get the score to a single-digit deficit. And for the third game in a row, the defending Class 5A champions found a way to hold onto their lead and advance.
This time to the championship game. Greenwood (30-2) held a seemingly comfortable 35-22 lead at halftime. Less than 30 seconds into the second half, senior Mady Cartwright crashed into the bleachers and sat for the next three minutes tending to a shin injury. In her absence, the Bulldogs went on a 10-0 run to make the score 45-22.
“Our other kids responded those few minutes when she went out,” Greenwood Coach Clay Reeves said. “Our players work hard. … They play against each other every single day and and compete hard. We’ve got great practices and I think that helps them.”
West Memphis (26-4) did what Nettleton and Little Rock Parkview did to Greenwood this week and tried to make a late comeback. West Memphis outscored Greenwood 27-16 in the fourth quarter.
“Just like last night, Parkview is a winning program, West Memphis a winning program,” Reeves said. “I expected [the comeback] the whole time. I told our kids ‘It’s not going away no matter what the score is. They’re coming at you. You got to keep going at them.’”
Greenwood was led by its star duo of Cartwright and Anna Trusty. Cartwright had 23 points and five rebounds. Trusty had 27 points and 12 rebounds. Carley Sexton added nine points and 10 rebounds.