Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Unselfish Play Adds To Highlight Reel For Athlete Of The Year
FARMINGTON — Farmington 2019 graduate Madisyn Pense consistently made the highlight reel featuring prominently in the tremendous success experienced by the girls basketball team from 2016-2019.
Pense, who will attend Central Missouri, on a basketball scholarship, has been selected by the Enterprise-Leader as Female Athlete of the Year for school year 2018-2019 at Farmington.
Among her extensive list of honors Pense took the court June 22 for her first high school game without her No. 1 collaborator in becoming a 1,000-point career scorer at the Arkansas High School Coaches Association girls basketball All-Star game on the campus of the University of Central Arkansas at Conway.
Pense’s running mate at guard, Makenna Vanzant, is a year younger with one more season of high school eligibility while Pense closed out her high school career as a member of the West All-Star girls basketball team playing once more for her high school coach Brad Johnson, of Farmington, who was selected as head coach for the West All-Stars.
The two seemingly have been around forever. Four seasons ago Pense was moved up to the varsity roster late in the season to give the Lady Cardinals some much-needed outside shooting. She played sparingly as a freshman in 2015-2016, the only season since 2011 in which Farmington did not qualify for a state tournament berth; but has regularly filled up the bucket ever since.
Dual Threats
Brad Johnson said one of the things which most impresses him about each athlete becoming a 1,000point scorer during their three seasons as teammates was unselfish play.
“They’re not ball-dominance. They’re such great teammates and they understand the value of playing team basketball, and setting one another up,” Brad Johnson said. “It’s never been about them individually or their statistics. A thousand points is a phenomenal feat for any player. When you can hit a 1,000 and not be a ball-dominant player, you play within the system and you share the basketball, it speaks to the teammate that they are with the system and just the fact that they’re working really efficient with how they play the game. They’re both very, very special kids.”
For three seasons opponents regularly felt “zapped” by one of Pense’s 3-pointers or the “thump” of an old-fashioned 3-point play as Vanzant absorbed contact while scoring.
The combined skillsets of the Lady Cardinal dynamic duo created all sorts of matchup problems for those tasked with defending them. In their three years sharing the basketball Farmington racked up 74 wins against 22 losses and came out a winner in 11-of-16 postseason games.
Farmington won district tournament championships when they hosted the 5A West in 2018 and a 4A-1 tourney title at Harrison in 2019. The Lady Cardinals advanced to state and won at least one state tournament game each year the girls played together appearing in the 5A semifinals in 2017, 5A quarterfinals in 2018 and 4A quarterfinals in 2019.
“That goes back to just being a great teammate,” Brad Johnson said. “She’s never been one to worry about individual accolades or anything like that.”
Track Injury
One of Pense’s major contributions to Farmington athletics occurred during the spring track and field season.
At the Bulldog Relays in Fayetteville, Pense and Farmington’s 4x400 relay team qualified for state by running a 4:21.42. But once the team arrived at the State 4A track and field meet weeks later, Pense wasn’t 100 percent due to an injury. Pense pulled herself from the lineup aware that Amelia Fuqua, who qualified for state in the 100 meter could take her spot if needed.
Pense’s unselfish act led to the Lady Cardinal 4x400 relay team of Lynley Bowen, Fuqua, Alexis Roach and Ashley Akridge performing better than two higher seeded squads to win the State 4A championship at Batesville’s Pioneer Stadium on April 30.
Fuqua helped the Lady Cardinals reduce their time by 8.22 seconds to claim the gold medallions with a time of 4:13.20.
Second place went to Magnolia’s team of TiAlone Banks, Kiara Frazier, Alexis Martin and Radasia Turner, which came in with a better seed time of 4:16.88 and lowered that by finishing in 4:13.99.
“It just goes to show that lots of effort, lots of hard work goes into that and they did a great job,” Farmington track coach Si Hornbeck said. “I couldn’t have been more proud than I was. They did fantastic, great kids, great effort, great win.”
Pense’s team-first attitude became another factor in her selection as Female Athlete of the Year.