LR Central takes aim at a championship double
After Little Rock Central knocked off North Little Rock during the semifinals in last week’s Class 6A girls state tournament, Marlon Williams mentioned that the atmosphere at Charging Wildcat Arena was about as electric as anything he’s ever witnessed as the Lady Tigers’ coach.
With the way the facility was rocking, Williams’ sentiments were understandable.
“I had never been a part of anything like that in my life,” he said. “All of us just dream about stuff like that, and it’s kind of surreal.”
There’s a pretty good chance he’ll witness another electrifying scene today at Bank OZK Arena win Hot Springs hen the Central basketball program tries to accomplish something that’s never been done in school history.
The Lady Tigers (18-12) will battle conference rival and defending champ Conway (26-7) for the Class 6A title at 6 p.m. Immediately after, the Tigers (26-6) will link up with Bryant (29-3) in the boy’ final at 7:45 p.m.
It’s the first time that both Central teams will be playing for state championships on the same day.
“Our Central community, our school, we deserve it,” said Williams, who’s taken the Lady Tigers to the title game for the first time ever. “We’ve got a great school, got great kids, got a bunch of hard-working faculty and coaches. … I’m just proud that everybody will get a chance to celebrate our school for doing something like this.”
Celebrate is exactly what Williams’ group did after upsetting the host team to reserve their spot in Hot Springs. Central had lost 20 consecutive games to North Little Rock since the 2016-17 season. Some of those years, the two played as many as three times.
But the Lady Tigers erased the memories of all of those losses with one monumental showing seven days ago.
Central trailed by as much as 10 points in the third quarter but rallied just in time for Taylor Day-Davis to send the game into overtime with a three-pointer with less that six seconds left in regulation. The Lady Tigers would make just enough free throws in that extra frame to stop their lengthy losing streak to the Lady Charging Wildcats and advance to the final.
“We already knew what the mission was,” Williams explained. “They just stuck to the plan. As long as there was time on the clock, we had a shot.”
Central will play a team it knows quite a bit about. Conway has beaten the Lady Tigers five consecutive times, including twice this season. The Lady Wampus Cats soared past Cabot in their semifinal game.
“I couldn’t be more proud,” Conway Coach Ashley Hutchcraft said. “I’ll be honest, when we won the state championship [last year], it felt like everybody left, and here we were. … we just got better every single day. But we’ve had that chip on our shoulder all year.
“Nobody thought that we’d be back, nobody thought that we’d be here again, especially after losing Chloe [Clardy] and Savannah [Scott]. We wear a wrist here that says ‘prove them wrong,’ and that’s been our motto all year.”
The Tigers used the motto ‘finish’ to fuel their championship run, and they’ll get their shot to bring their first state crown home since 2020 when covid-19 forced them to share it with Conway.
“This is huge,” Central boys Coach Brian Ross said. “I felt like this group deserved it. If this group of seniors had graduated without even a trip to Hot Springs, it would’ve felt empty because I’ve always thought they were good enough. They’ve always worked hard enough.
“But the biggest thing is that they love each other, care about each other.”
Like the Lady Tigers, the Tigers will be confronting a team that’s gotten the better of them twice this year. Bryant beat Central 47-44 on Jan. 9 and 52-50 on Feb. 6, but Hornets Coach Mike Abrahamson isn’t leaning on the past to gauge what’ll happen in meeting No. 3.
“Super talented team,” he said of the Tigers. “All these guys are friends. Our team and their team, they all hang out outside of school. But they’re just a very talented team.
“It’s probably going to be a war.”