High school All- Star basketball
East boys hold off West 100- 97; Collier paces East girls.
East 100, West 97
Rico Mayo ( center), of the East, drives to the basket but loses the ball between West defenders Reggie Sanchez ( left) and Lee Whisenhunt during Thursday’s Arkansas High School Coaches Association All- Star boys basketball game at the Farris Center in Conway. The East knocked down 14 three- pointers and got a team- high 20 points from Marcus Brown to beat the West for the seventh consecutive time.
CONWAY — Hunter Daley and Kelvin Robinson have seen plenty of each other during the past four years as competitors in the 3A- 5 Conference. On Thursday, they turned out to be pretty good teammates.
Daley and Robinson combined for 35 points and 10 rebounds as the East held off a late West rally for a 100- 97 victory in the Arkansas High School Coaches Association All- Star boys basketball game at the University of Central Arkansas’ Farris Center.
Robinson wound up as the MVP, totaling 19 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists. Daley was selected as the East’s most outstanding player with 16 points, 3 rebounds and 2 assists.
Robinson, a 6- 1 guard from Episcopal Collegiate, scored six of his points in the game’s final 3: 12 to help the East to win for the seventh consecutive time in the series that dates to 1956.
“I love playing with Kel,” said Daley, a 5- 11 guard from Jessieville who has signed to play at Arkansas- Monticello. “He’s a great athlete and a great teammate.”
UALR signee Andre Jones of Malvern provided the West with plenty of offensive punch, scoring 25 points. But the West never held the lead in the second half.
“I thought I played well individually, but we just couldn’t do it as a team,” Jones said. “We had a lot of fight in us, but it was just too much for us to overcome.”
Jones not only had a gamehigh 25 points, but he also tied teammate Ryan Pippins of Little Rock Parkview and the East’s Marcus Brown of Earle with eight rebounds. Jones and Brown also had a gamehigh three assists each.
“He’s going to get his,” Daley said of Jones. “We knew we couldn’t let him get over 30. We threw Kel on on him and that slowed him down a little bit.”
Jones was 10 of 22 from the floor, including 3 of 9 on three- pointers, one of which came at the final horn.
“The key was defense and stopping Andre Jones,” Robinson said. “That was my role. … On the offensive end, I tried to find the open man. But if I had the opportunity to score, I was going to take it to the hole.”
Brown also contributed heavily to the East offense. He wound up as the East’s leading scorer, scoring 10 of his 20 points in the final period.
Robinson, who has committed to play at Appalachian State, made 7 of 9 shots from the floor, hitting his lone three- point attempt and also connecting on 4 of 6 free throws. Daley was 6 of 10 from the floor, including 4 of 8 from three- point range.
“I came into this game knowing I had to shoot the ball,” Daley said. “I shot when I got the opportunity and I distributed when I had to distribute. It was nothing out of my comfort zone.”
Morrilton’s Chave Zackery added 15 points and six rebounds for the West, while Tavion Revels of Emerson scored 12 points and collected five rebounds.
Jonesboro Westside’s Rico Mayo had a game- high four steals for the East.
The East scored 14 consecutive points in the second quarter, taking a 36- 20 advantage. The West, however, got eight points from Revels in the third period to keep the game from becoming a runaway.
Revels got a steal and a layup with 1: 56 left left before halftime to put the West in front 46- 44, but a three- pointer by Bay’s Jonathan Crain and a steal and layup from Forrest City’s Monte Randle allowed the East to take a 49- 46 lead at the half.