Cards Close, But No Victory Cigar At Alma

FARMINGTON — Farmington’s boys basketball team suffered its first loss of the season with a narrow 49-44 defeat on the road at Alma Tuesday, Dec. 10.

“We beat them two out of four quarters and tied another one, but we had the second quarter where they outscore us 16-4, just that one bad quarter, got in a little foul trouble, had to take one or two guards out. I thought that hurt us,” Farmington coach Beau Thompson said. “They pressed us the whole game. I think our two guards, (Logan) Burch and (Marqwaveon) Watson had one turnover apiece. We give ourselves a chance. You know a team that’s going to press you and trap the ball like that, you give yourself a chance to win.”

Alma rallied down the stretch after Farmington put together a 16-2 run over a 7:37 span that included the first basket of the fourth quarter. The Cardinals surged back from a 22-13 halftime deficit with solid play during the third.

Marqwaveon Waton began the run finding Logan Landwehr for a transition layup. The senior point-guard later spotted Adam Simmons open for a 3-pointer during the run.

Austin Shelley hit a turnaround jumper and stuck an 18-footer contributing 5 points to the spree. Devonte Donovan put the ball in the hoop just before the third quarter buzzer when Simmons tapped a rebound away from Alma and into Donovan’s hands. That gave Farmington a 30-29 lead at the end of the third quarter.

“We had a great third quarter. We had a goal. We were down nine at the half and our goal was to get it back to four or five and we look up and we’re up one going into the fourth quarter,” Thompson said. “That was a great quarter for us. I thought we really guarded them, took good shots. We made a few shots. Right now, I think we’re fine defensively, a little behind offensively. That may be the case for awhile.”

The Cardinals added one more bucket to the run to start the fourth. Post players shared the ball with each other with Shelley’s assist going to Donovan. Then Alma’s Bobby Winfrey broke the run with a short jumper beginning an 11-4 counter that allowed the Airdales to take a 42-36 lead late in the contest.

Landwehr scored 4 points sandwiched around an Alma free throw to pull the Cardinals within 43-40 with a minuteand-a-half to go. The difference was still only three points when Shelley passed out of a double-team to Donovan for a layup at the 59 second mark.

Farmington failed to get a key rebound off a missed Alma free throw with 17.2 seconds remaining. Austin

Cluck was fouled and put the game away by making both ends of the double bonus giving Alma a 5-point advantage in the closing seconds.

Donovan had 11 for Farmington followed by Shelley with 10; Burch, 8; Landwehr, 8; Simmons, 3; Watson, 2; and Riley Funk, 2.

Cejay Mann led all scorers with 22 points for Alma. Half of his points came during a 16-4 second quarter run.

“Cejay Mann was just better than us that night. They had one player, Cejay Mann. He’s a college guard and he was just better than us. Nothing wrong with that. I thought our kids competed,” Thompson said. “It was a good test for us on the road. We hadn’t had a good road test, and it was a great atmosphere. It will be good preparation when we go to Siloam (Springs) on Tuesday and Prairie Grove on Friday.”