Russellville girls rally in fourth quarter

GIRLS

RUSSELLVILLE 61, ROGERS 58

ROGERS — Russellville’s girls rallied from a 10-point deficit after three quarters and held on for a 61-58 win over Rogers at Mountie Arena on Tuesday night.

The Lady Mounties (1-2) led 49-39 entering the fourth quarter, but the Lady Cyclones opened the fourth quarter with an 8-0 run to quickly get within one. Russellville (3-0) then put together a 10-0 spurt to turn a 55-50 deficit into a 6055 lead on a rebound bucket by Taleigha Ealy with less than two minutes left.

But Brooklyn Owens’ driving layup with 21.8 seconds left pulled Rogers within 6058. Russellville split a pair of free throws with 5.1 seconds left to push its lead to three. Kiara Owens had a potential game-tying three-pointer rimmed out at the buzzer for the Lady Mounties.

It was the second straight night the Lady Mounties had a last-second shot fail to go down. They had one rattle out at the buzzer in a 37-35 loss to Morrilton on Monday despite shooting just 25% from the floor.

Rogers Coach Preston Early said he saw significant growth from the night before despite coming up short.

“Honestly for us to go out and put ourselves in that kind of position is a lot of growth especially coming off of last night where we felt like we didn’t look good,” Early said. “To respond today that’s what’s frustrating because I think that could have been a big win and momentum-builder, something you can gain a lot of confidence from and we just kind of let that slip through our fingers.

“I told them it’s disappointing but not discouraging because we showed a lot of response from [Monday]. We don’t really know all we can do. They say nobody really knows who they really are until they’ve played about 10 times. and that’s what I told them. You still have a lot of growth.”

Early also pointed out that each of each of his team’s first four games, including a benefit game, came down to one possession. Rogers won two of those and lost two.

Brenna Burk led the Lady Cyclones with 19 points, while Dru Robinson added 14 and Ealy chipped in 11.

Kiara and led all scorers with 22 points, while Brooklyn Owens added 21 for Rogers. Kiara Owens also had five steals and seven rebounds, while Brooklyn Owens added a team-high nine rebounds.

Rogers led 17-12 after a quarter and 32-26 at halftime.

BOYS

RUSSELLVILLE 62, ROGERS 59

Russellville raced to a 39-25 halftime lead, but had to hold on late to improve to 3-0.

The Mounties (1-1) sliced a 13-point deficit to three on Rex Krout’s three-pointer with 47 seconds left. Krout had a chance to tie, but it was off the mark and the Cyclones rebounded as time expired.

Krout led all scorers with 24 points, while Aidan Chronister chipped in 15 and Amari Jones added 12 for the Mounties.

Cameron Frazier led Russellville with 20 points, while Donovan Villarreal added 14. The Cyclones led 53-37 after three quarters.