Williams’ scoring eases CAC’s nerves

OZARK — Central Arkansas Christian started a little slow offensively, but it didn’t take long to pick up the pace Friday in a first-round matchup at the Class 4A girls basketball state tournament at Ozark Arena.

Freshman Christyn Williams scored a game-high 24 points for CAC while senior Sarah Butler added 19 and senior Sydnie Jones finished with 15 in a 66-36 victory against Pottsville.

“I thought we played pretty well and even better in the second half,” CAC Coach Steve Quattlebaum said. “We had too many turnovers early. Once we settled down, we started hitting some shots.”

The Lady Mustangs held a 10-7 lead in the first quarter and pushed the advantage to 33-23 heading into halftime. Williams took over offensively for CAC (28-3), scoring the final 12 points of the second quarter.

“They just played better than us and made us like it,” Pottsville Coach Chance Johnson said. “We tried to stay with them a little bit. They have some good players. We just had a hard time scoring against them.”

The Lady Mustangs had seven turnovers in the first quarter but only one in the second quarter, which allowed them to pull away.

Pottsville (18-12) shot 28 percent from the field in the first half and trailed by 10 at halftime, but the Lady Apaches weren’t able to keep it close in the third quarter.

“We had a lot of missed shots early,” Johnson said. “As bad as we shot, we were still in it. I did feel good about that. But in the third quarter, they hit some shots. Being down 15 made it feel like we were down 30.”

Butler scored a team-high nine points and Williams finished with eight in the third quarter to help push the lead to 58-34 heading into the fourth quarter. Pottsville was held to 11 third-quarter points.

CAC closed out the fourth quarter by outscoring Pottsville 8-2 to keep the game well out of reach.

Pottsville was led by Ashley Brannon with nine points and Carlee McClure added eight points, all in the second quarter.