Fountain Lake settling in for season

FOUNTAIN LAKE — With a strong start just over a month into the season, Fountain Lake has managed to overcome some adversity already as the Cobras have lost a pair of starters in Andrew Overton and Jordan Mungle.

Overton, a 6-4 190-pound junior, was set to be the big man for the Cobras (10-2, 2-1 3A-4), but he tore his ACL during the summer.

“He’s probably out the whole year,” head coach Jake Dettmering said. “There might be a slight chance he could come back at the very end, but it’s doubtful.”

Ramiro Vasquez, a 6-0, 200-pound senior, took over Overton’s spot after taking time off last season.

“He played for me as a sophomore and made a bad decision, quit as a junior and wanted to come back,” Dettmering said.

“He’s given us a real lift, especially with Andrew going down. He’s really tough inside. He’s undersized, but he makes up for it with physicality.”

Mungle (5-9, 150), a senior guard, rolled his ankle two weeks ago, leading him to be benched as the team faced its first three conference opponents. Classmate Riley Hood (5-9, 155) moved from the sixth man to the starting

spot. Junior guard Rodrigo Vasquez (5-8, 135) has also stepped up.

“They’ve done a nice job filling in for Jordan,” Dettmering said. “Riley’s had some experience. He came off the bench and played with some solidness last year.

“Rodrigo, he’s gotten more minutes this year, and he’s been performing pretty well. He’s been shooting the ball pretty good and playing good defense.”

Seniors Joe Murphy (5-9, 170), Ahman Johnson (5-10, 150) and junior Colton McMullin (6-0, 167) round out the team’s starting five.

“He’s a tough kid,” Dettmering said of Murphy. “He kind of sets the tone for us defensively. He’s always in the right spot, taking charges. He’s our best communicator. He’s just a tough and gritty kid.”

“Ahman gets in there and plays by the rim,” Dettmering added. “He gets a lot of his offense from his defense — getting steals and getting some run-outs. He does a nice job finishing around the basket as well. He’s a little bit more of a high-flyer. He gets up there and plays by the rim. He’s actually had a couple dunks for us this year.”

The Cobras moved from the 4A-7 conference down into the 3A-4 with Garland County foe Jessieville. Booneville (9-1, 3-0) leads the conference, returning seven seniors from a team that lost to eventual Class 4A runner-up Jonesboro Westside in the first round of the playoffs.

Beyond the Bearcats, Dettmering feels the rest of the conference is on a fairly even keel. Perryville (5-2,

2-1), Jessieville (8-4, 2-1) and Paris

(7-5, 2-1) all have one conference loss with Atkins (3-4, 1-2), Two Rivers (1-9,

0-3) and Lamar (2-7, 0-3) sitting in the bottom three spots in the conference.

The Cobras take on Lamar tonight at Irvin J. Bass Gymnasium-Sammy Lambert Court before traveling to Atkins next Thursday.

Girls

The Lady Cobras are dealing with an issue this season that nothing but experience can solve — youth.

With three sophomores among the five starters, Fountain Lake (4-8,

0-3) has quite a bit of work ahead as it starts to wrap the first segment of the basketball season.

“We have got a really young team,” said head coach Chris Mungle. “We’re starting three sophomores this year, a junior and one senior.

“We are going to play defense. We are going to rebound. We’ve just got to find a way to score enough points to win some basketball games. A really good group of kids that listen. I’ve had a really good year so far, and I’m really looking forward to the rest of the year.”

Senior Cherokee Fields, junior Emoree Martin and sophomores Presley Hamric, Karli Bryant and Hannah Vaughn lead the team on the court each night.

Mungle said Fields, a 5-7 point guard, has been playing on a weakened ankle since an injury sustained in the Magnet Cove tournament. He said she may currently be at 70 percent.

“She was doing a really, really good job of distributing the basketball, getting us set in our offenses, doing everything really well,” Mungle said.

“She went down with an ankle; she’s fighting back through that. She’s got us back running our offense, but she’s lost a step right now with that ankle. She’s not able to finish the way she’s capable of just because of that gimpy ankle.”

Martin, a 5-11 power forward, is the team’s only returning starter from last season’s team. Mungle said she has a more offensive role on this year’s team after focusing on rebounding and defense a season ago.

“The other night at Magnet Cove, she got in foul trouble and I had to set her,” Mungle said. “She went in at halftime with zero points and scored 16 in the second half for us.

Mungle said Hamric is attacking the basket more efficiently. He said the sophomore is “a handful to guard” at 5-10.

“She has the ability to shoot over people and shoot it,” Mungle said. “She’s just now really developing that other part of her game as far as off the dribble and being able to pull up and shoot it. She’s done a lot of scoring for us this year.”

Mungle said he is looking to get more offense from Bryant and consistency from Vaughn. He said the team’s defense has impressed him, while the Lady Cobras may struggle to score consistently.

“We’ve just got to find a way to manufacture enough points to beat some people,” Mungle said. “We have not shot the ball from the perimeter as well as we are capable of yet this year.”

Mungle said the team’s shooting skills have not yet carried into games. The Lady Cobras have developed a balanced scoring attack going into conference play against teams such as Lamar (9-2, 3-0), Paris (9-3, 1-2) and Two Rivers (7-3, 2-1), who are no strangers to postseason play.

“Going into this new league, looking at it last year, most of the teams in this league were very young, so most of them have got a lot of players back that played last year,” Mungle said.

“In my opinion, from top to bottom, we moved into probably the best 3A league in the state, as far as girls basketball,” Mungle added.

Mungle said Fountain Lake must be able to “rebound as a committee” against the size of the rest of the 3A-4 conference.

“My old 4A league is not as big, size-wise, as my 3A league,” Mungle said. “Paris has two 6-footers. We played Two Rivers the other night, and their guards are 5-8, 5-9. Yes, we moved down in classification, but we moved into a really good 3A league.”

Mungle said his team played well in a 36-26 loss to Two Rivers on Tuesday, holding the Lady Gators to three points in the fourth quarter.

While the Lady Cobras have yet to get a conference win, they had a strong performance against Two Rivers, despite a 36-26 loss.

“We were able to slow the game down and control it,” Mungle said. “We missed a couple of shots, and I’m talking about we got the ball inside where we needed to, but we missed a couple gimmes. They’re a really good basketball team. They just pulled away there at the end.”

The Lady Cobras host Lamar tonight at Irvin J. Bass Gymnasium-Sammy Lambert Court with a road date at Atkins (9-3, 3-0) on Thursday.