Lady Panthers

hopefully make us better for conference. We’d like to retain our title, so beefing up the nonconference schedule to get ready for that.”

The Lady Panthers have had mixed results in starting this season 2-2. Benton began the year with a 47-46 benefit win over Greenbrier before handling Camden Fairview 52-41. The Lady Panthers then dropped a 56-43 decision to Little Rock Christian at home before struggling to score in a 39-27 defeat to Searcy on the road.

“Defensively we played well,” Chumley said of the Searcy loss. “If you would have told me we were going to hold them to 39 points, I’d be anxious to get on the bus and go. But offensively we struggled. We didn’t execute very well, shot selection wasn’t very good and we turned it over about 25 times. That’s young and inexperienced and got sped up mentally. We just played poorly all night offensively.

“What I was proud of is we guarded pretty well, especially their bigs.

Held some of their leading scorers down. We’re pretty good defensively, we just have to get our offense going.”

It has been that defense which has been a trademark of Chumley’s teams throughout the years, but the Coach is looking for others to step it up offensively with all that was lost from last season.

“They’re buying into that side of it,” Chumley said of the defense. “We haven’t quite figured out yet that we’re probably not good enough just to go play 1-on-1 all the time and go get buckets. We’re going to have to do it through our offense. Do the little things that help the offense run. I think it will come around. We have to figure out how to build confidence. We just have keep working at it and not get down.”

As far as the 5A South Conference title the Lady Panthers swept a season ago, it’ll be a tougher get this year, but not out of the realm of possibility.

“It’s not going to be anything like last year,” Chumley said. “(Lake) Hamilton has brought a lot of sophomores up from that really good junior high team they had last year. He’s (LH Coach Blake Condley) got a much better team. I figure Lake Hamilton is probably the 1 seed right now going into the season. We’re right there with Sheridan and Lakeside for the next two or three spots. We just have to put it together.”

Benton will try to bulk up for South play at

Cabot in nonconference action on Tuesday.