Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Enterprise-Leader’s Athletes Of The Year
PRAIRIE GROVE — Twin sisters, Taylor and Mattie Hartin, who graduated in 2016 after a stellar basketball career have each been selected as female Athlete of the Year for 2016 at Prairie Grove.
To gain insight into their value — imagine a cartoon such as Beauty and the Beast where hand utensils such as a candlestick, cup, teapot and clock have personalities. In such a scenario, if Prairie Grove girls basketball coach Kevin Froud were cast in a cartoon role of a riverboat gambler in the old west, the girls might have been pearl-handled twin six shooters in his arsenal as he played out his hand.
During their senior season of 2015-2016, the twins led Prairie Grove to a 16-1 home record, including winning the District 4A-1 and 4A-1 North Regional tournaments. Their shooting ability had much to do with the success.
For her senior season, Taylor Hartin played in 30 games, averaging 9.7 points, 1.8 rebounds, 1.0 assists, and 1.1 steals with an assist to turnover ratio of .78 and a steals to turnover ratio of .85 per game. Mattie Hartin played in 29 games, averaging 11.9 points, 1.7 rebounds, 0.6 assists, and 0.6 steals with an assist to turnover ratio of .46 and a steals to turnover ratio of .49 per game.
“The shooting part, they worked on it on their own,” Froud said, noting the twins would come into the gym in the evenings and shoot baskets.
Both girls were consistent at the free-throw line. As primary ball-handlers, Froud frequently orchestrated a favorite strategy of getting a lead, then spreading the court and forcing teams to foul to stop the clock.
“At the end of the game, we could put games away and win with their freethrow shooting,” Froud said.
“They wanted to win. They had the ultimate goal. We had some unselfish players around them, Ashley Cox and Taylor Doss, who would do the dirty work, get rebounds, set screens and do the things we needed to win.”
Prairie Grove superintendent Allen Williams followed the twins’ Lady Tiger basketball career from grades 7-12 as the girls were classmates with his daughter, Sydney.
“I started watching them as seventh- graders, it was amazing the way they developed over the years,” Williams said. “Both were really good players. They played hard, they played smart. They were good students and good citizens at school. They were not very big, but very, very scrappy.”
Froud recalled the twins moved up to varsity as freshmen at the end of the regular season.
“They had the ability,” Froud said. “We just had to get them a little tougher and they did that as far as maturity.”
Both girls improved their assists- to- turnover and steals- to- turnover ratios. Taylor lowered an average of 2.5 turnovers-per-game as a sophomore to 1.3 as a senior while Mattie also dropped her average from 1.6 as a sophomore to 1.2 as a senior.
According to Froud, a noteworthy achievement was the twins both started three seasons, as sophomores, juniors and seniors. Williams said the twins’ junior season of 2014-2015 was enjoyable from a fan’s perspective. Prairie Grove won the 4A-1 Conference crown with a 12-2 league mark, added a district championship and regional runner- up trophies and advanced to the state semifinal before coming up short, 40-39, against Ozark on the Hillbillies’ home court.
“That was probably the funnest year I’ve had watching a team,” Williams said. “Their junior year especially, they were one-point away from going to the finals. Other girls in that class, Ashley Cox, Taylor Doss, were good players, too; and other classes around them such as this year’s seniors with Camree Bartholomew, played well.”
“The Hartin twins were fun to watch, they always hustled and were good shooters,” Williams said, marveling at the twins’ ability to secure a key possession for Prairie Grove by coming down with a rebound against taller opponents.
“The way they would rebound for their size. You can’t play for Coach Froud if you don’t box out and they did that.”