Parkview clamps down on Catholic

Little Rock Parkview Coach Al Flanigan wasn’t too happy with his team’s rebounding during Tuesday night’s game against Little Rock Catholic, but that’s about the only fault he found with his team after another dominant defensive performance.

No. 2 Parkview held Catholic to one field goal in the second half and forced 25 turnovers for the game while cruising to a 63-22 victory.

“Any time you can win on the road in conference, you’ve got to be happy,” Flanigan said. “It took us a while to get in rhythm, though. Once we got the tempo to where we wanted it, we were OK.”

The Patriots were more than OK during two stretches in the second and third quarters that turned a fairly close game into a full-blown rout. Parkview (8-1, 2-0) outscored Catholic 43-9 over the two periods, which included holding the Rockets scoreless in the third quarter. In fact, Catholic had nearly as many turnovers in the third quarter (7) as it did shot attempts (8).

“They were just too quick, too tough to defend,” Catholic Coach Tim Ezzi said. “They create so many problems with their defense, but that’s the trademark of Al’s teams. And then, they were knocking down shots. I thought we played hard, but Parkview was just too tough for us.”

Anton Beard led the Patriots with a game-high 21 points. DeShaud Kelley scored 13 points and I.J. Ready finished with 10. Mitchell Luther had six points to lead Catholic (1-8, 0-2), which was coming off a 49-45 loss to Fort Smith Northside in its first conference game last Friday.

Ezzi knew his team would have its hands full with the Patriots’ pressure in their home conference opener.

“We’re so young and we knew it’d be tough,” he said. “Playing them is an experience within itself, but we’ll gain a lot from the game and hopefully we’ll get better as we go through conference play.”

The Rockets trailed 15-8 heading into the second quarter following Beard’s buzzerbeating three-pointer, but the Patriots scored the first 12 points of the period, most of which resulted off of steals and ensuing fast-break opportunities. The Rockets didn’t score their first basket of the quarter until Zach Morris’ putback with 3:55 left.

The Patriots then scored nine of the game’s next 12 points and eventually led 3917 at halftime.

Catholic struggled to get much of anything going offensively in the third quarter. Kelley’s layup started a string of 19 consecutive points for the Patriots. Beard personally went on a 10-run before baskets by Kelley, Ready and Ryan Pippins closed out the quarter.

Morris finally broke the Rockets’ scoreless drought with a tap-in with 7:42 left in the game, but the Patriots led by 39 points by that time.