Conway, NLR fittingly in final
Neither Conway nor North Little Rock were guaranteed spots in the Class 6A girls championship game before the season started.
It just seemed that way. When the 6A-Central Conference rivals set foot on the Bank OZK Arena floor in Hot Springs today at noon, they’ll do so as a pair of powerhouses that went wire-to-wire through the regular season as Arkansas’ No. 1 and No 2 ranked teams. So it’s seemingly fitting that the two will battle it out for a state championship.
“I mean, it’s Conway and North Little Rock,” Conway Coach Ashley Hutchcraft said. “It’s two teams that are similar, two teams that know a lot about each other. At this point, there’s nothing that we can do to surprise them, and there’s nothing they can do to surprise us.”
The two aren’t exactly strangers to playing in a state final either.
Top-ranked Conway (275) is making its seventh finals appearance since 2005, while second-ranked North Little Rock (26-5) is in the championship round for the seventh time since 2006. It’s the third time the two have played each other for a state title, too.
“It’s one of those games where you don’t have to say much to the kids to get them motivated,” North Little Rock Coach Daryl Fimple explained. “The players from both teams enjoy playing each other. It never gets chippy, there’s never a moment where you’re like, ‘oh my, there’s gonna be a fight’. Both teams are pretty classy, and that’s a direct reflection of Coach Hutchcraft.
“She’s very classy, and her kids play the right way. So I think the teams bring out the best in both of us.”
Lateley, it’s been the Lady Wampus Cats who’ve had the upper hand in the headto-head matchups.
Conway has taken four consecutive meetings from North Little Rock and eight of the past 10. That’s enough to make the Lady Wampus Cats a slight favorite today, but if there’s anything both Fimple and Hutchcraft have learned during their noteworthy coaching careers, it’s that nothing is guaranteed.
There was a stretch between 2014 and 2018 when Conway advanced to the title game four times, but it reached the semifinal round in each of the following three seasons. And then last year, the Lady Wampus Cats were upset in the second round by Little Rock Central.
“One of the girls asked me the other day how I felt, and I told her that honestly, it feels like it’s been too long since we’ve been in a final,” Hutchcraft said. “The last two times we were in the title game, it’s been against North Little Rock. We went all those years being in the finals, and then to be off for a little bit, it’s been different. But it does feel good to be back and playing for a championship.
“But most importantly, I’m so glad that this group has the opportunity to do it.”
Conway has been guided all season by its quartet of seniors, led by a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year in Chloe Clardy. The Stanford signee is averaging nearly 25 points for the Lady Wampus Cats, who’ve won 10 consecutive games and have beaten every state team it’s faced. Even the one loss they had against a team from Arkansas — 61-59 to Central on Jan. 17 — they’ve avenged it twice since then by an average score of 67-38.
Hutchcraft did admit that her team had to work through some issues earlier this year when they endured a rare three-game losing streak. Two of those losses coming against nationally-ranked programs while the other was the upset against Central, but in the end, she said she believed those setbacks did them more good than harm.
“That was challenging to be honest,” she said of the string of defeats. “But they helped us get right, and I’ve seen a difference in their leadership, and not just Chloe. Savannah [Scott] is dialed in right now, too, and she’s in a really good place, looking like the SEC post player she is. If we can stay that way for a few more days, I think we’re in a good spot.”
Fimple mentioned that he knew his Lady Charging Wildcats would be an equally good spot last summer despite losing his inside duo of Amauri Williams and Destine Duckworth to graduation.
“We were worried because we were losing so much rebounding and points from last season,” he noted. “But after about the first four or five games that we played in the summer, I thought we had a chance to be really good. Honestly, this is kind of a different team than what we’ve had in the past because we’re not post oriented so much.
“Yet, the interesting thing about that is that we still score a ton of points in the paint. We’ve averaging about 38 points inside a night, and we didn’t even average that when we had a true post kid.”
North Little Rock still has able players inside, but one of the things that’s steered them is the fact that Fimple has gotten fearless guard play from his trio of seniors in April Edwards, Garin Freeman and Ja’Miya Brown. All three, along with junior Jocelyn Tate, can finish around the rim whenever they penetrate. If that’s not there, the four can step out and knock down shots from the perimeter, namely Brown.
Those dynamics are what have always made the Conway-North Little Rock rivalry as competitive and box office as it’s been. There’s usually something big on the line when the teams meet, and it doesn’t get any bigger than what’s at stake in their final games of the year.
“You’ve got a fantastic opportunity to see women’s basketball played at a high level,” Fimple said. “There’s gonna be 10 college players on the floor, on some level or another, every buzzer you hear or when a sub is made. So it’ll be an exciting time for everyone involved.”