Lady Warriors’ first half spark leads to victory hosting HSC neighbors Malvern
DONALDSON — For the first time in a non-conference match-up on the hardwood, the hometown Malvern Lady Leopards made a short trip to Donaldson — Warrior Country to compete against the Ouachita Lady Warriors for an interesting senior high girls basketball contest at Ouachita High School Gymnasium.
It was unfortunate both teams had other scheduled opponents for Tuesday, but history took place on the Ouachita High School AllCare Pharmacy Court to feature these two Hot Spring County basketball programs in hoop action.
The Lady Leopards were short-handed with several key players unable to play, but continued to compete despite their situation. The Lady Warriors also had a few key pieces missing, but maintained to perform productively and prevailed against their HSC neighbors—Malvern, 52-18.
The Lady Warriors came out rolling and blazed to a pure shooting performance for a productive first half advantage. The Lady Leopards had a tough time early and never regrouped to rally back.
Malvern Lady Leopards head basketball coach Cleveland Gordon thought this game was a learning experience for his girls. Although Gordon didn’t have the outcome he desired, he believes these experiences are situations his teams must fight through and keep focusing to get better. “The kids are faced with a lot of challenges and it has been frustrating—but we have to move on from it,” Gordon mentioned.
Despite the tough defeat, the Lady Leopards maintained their composure the entire 32 minute contest with Dy’sire Jones leading the scoring department with nine points, Olivia Petty contributed five points and Star Casey added four points that sparked Malvern’s team production offensively.
Ouachita Lady Warriors basketball head coach Corey Brown has been pleased by his teams production this season. Brown knew coming off a tough road performance against the reigning Class 1A state champs Kirby helped prepare the mentality to battle a higher classification team. Brown believed their matchup against Malvern can build their team chemistry to finish out this season strong in Class 1A.
Brown noted the Lady Warriors were anxious to get back on the court after dropping their last game to Kirby. When a conference opponent had to reschedule Brown began to search for a team play and they were able to host their Hot Spring County neighbor Malvern— who also had a cancellation happen to them.
“I told the team to just pick up where they left off with that same second half energy way they had at Kirby and wow, we sure did. Our half court defense was flying all over the court. That turned into some easy offense for us,” Brown said. “We got them down big early and they were just never really able to recover from that,” Brown added.
The Lady Warriors were led by three of their start
ing weapons—seniors Lizzy Rowton, Linsey Sirrtt and underclassman inside player Gabby Buras. The trio posted in double-figures. Rowton led all scorers with a whipping
19 points and drained three triples from downtown beyond the arc. Buras followed with 12 points all coming in the post area for a productive inside game. Sirratt finished with 10 points and swished two trifectas from beyond the arc to surge the Lady Warriors outstanding shooting performance. Tess Kuykendall nailed a trifecta for three
points. Allison McIntosh had three points, Aileen Ables and Emma Kyzer each finished with two points.
Malvern and Ouachita will have more hoops competition to continue for the 2020-2021 basketball season in their respective Class 4A and Class 1A league schedules for senior high girls competition.