Lady Cards Tune-Up For League Play

FARMINGTON — The Lady Cardinal girls basketball team steamrolled more than one opponent in December while making plans to jump into the heat of contention for a conference championship.

“I do kind of think we’ve made a seamless transition into the first part of the year and certainly the competition we saw over the break has helped that,” said Farmington coach Brad Johnson. “We had a brutal nonconference schedule and then we went out to Mountain Home and we got a chance to compete against Rogers, compete against Highland which was a state tournament team in 4A last year; and then on the last day we played Watson’s Chapel which is a perennial powerhouse out of 5A and coached by a future Hall-ofFamer (Coach Leslie Henderson). We got to see a lot of different styles of basketball, a lot of real quality players, go against some quality coaches and quality schemes.

On Dec. 14, Farmington whipped Bryant, 62-39, behind 23 points on 9-of-11 shooting by junior forward Tori Kersey, who also had 4 steals.

Carson Dillard’s trey and a Joelle Tidwell 2-pointer combined with a Kersey free throw to give the Lady Cardinals an early 6-0 lead. The Lady Hornets didn’t score until midway through the first period and Farmington bumped the lead up to 11-7 in the opening quarter with Trinity Johnson’s 3-pointer and another Kersey bucket adding to the total.

Farmington owned a 10-point lead with the three minute mark approaching in the second quarter before the Lady Hornets hit back-toback 3-pointers narrowing it to 19-15. Still, the Lady Cardinals owned a 26-17 halftime lead with Kersey scoring 7 points in the second and Trinity Johnson draining a pair of trifectas.

Makenna Vanzant had yet to score, yet Farmington led 29-19 behind double figure scoring efforts by Trinity Johnson and Kersey in the first minute of the third quarter. The Lady Cardinals expanded the differential to 38-19 in the midst of the third with Vanzant getting on track for 7 points. Farmington led 44-27 at the end of three periods of play.

Bryant again came back firing threes. India Atkins and Alexis Taylor hit from downtown yet the lead remained 17, at 42-25. Celena Martin’s steal and lay-in on a careless pass got Bryant closer at 46-29 at the 6:34 mark of the fourth, but Bryant couldn’t contain Kersey, whose 9 points in the fourth helped push the margin to 56-30 and the outcome was never in doubt.

Vanzant added a 3-pointer in the fourth and finished with 10 points, 4 assists and 2 steals. Tidwell had 4 points, 3 rebounds, 5 assists and a steal.

Farmington 62, Bryant 39

Bryant 7 10 10 12 — 39 Farmington 11 15 18 18 — 62 Farmington (11-1): Tori Kersey 9-11 5-8 23, Trinity Johnson 5-10 2-2 16, Makenna Vanzant 3-12 2-2 10, Joelle Tidwell 2-2 0-0 4, Kaci Drain 2-3 0-0 4, Carson Dillard 1-6 0-0 3, Megan Hernandez 1-4 0-0 2, Morgan Brye 0-2 0-0 0. Totals 23-50 9-12 62. Bryant(5-3): Alexis Taylor 4 1-2 13, India Atkins 4 2-2 12, Jordan Hancock 3 0-0 6, Celena Martin 2 0-0 4, Ivory Ellis 2 0-0 4. Totals 15 3-4 39.

3-point Goals — Farmington — 7-23 (Trinity Johnson 4-9, Vanzant 2-8, Dillard 1-5, Drain 0-1). Bryant — 6 (Taylor 4, Atkins 2). Rebounds — Farmington 18 (Dillard 4), Bryant 27. Assists — Farmington 14 (Tidwell 5), Bryant 11. Steals — Farmington 14 (Kersey 4), Bryant 7. Turnovers — Farmington 10.