Headed to the semifinals El Dorado gets past Jonesboro
PEARCY – El Dorado’s girls got down and dirty, locking down an outstanding Jonesboro club with 32 minutes of scratching, clawing, biting defense. On offense, the Lady Wildcats handed the ball to Mekaylan Hicks, who scored 23 points with 13 rebounds, three steals and three blocked shots in a 39-28 victory in the 6A State Tournament.
El Dorado will play Sheridan in the semifinals on Saturday.
“We just beat a really good team, a really good team. I’m just so proud of my kids,” said El Dorado coach Destinee Rogers. “They stepped up for the moment. Here we are now in the semifinals. I believe in this team. When we play like that and play team ball and have heart and fight on defense, I believe anything can happen. We put ourselves in a good chance to win.
“We’re fighting and I love it. That is a legitimate team. They have multiple kids that will go and play college ball. For our kids to come down and not back down to those kids and to have so much grit and so much toughness, I’m just so proud of them.”
The game was knotted at 8-8 after one quarter. El Dorado led 16-15 at the half. The Hurricane was up 19-18 before the Adrienne Larry’s 3-pointer sparked an 8-0 spurt in the final six minutes of the third, giving the Lady Wildcats a 26-19 advantage going into the fourth.
With the West Memphis fans cheering loudly against their arch-rival Jonesboro, the Lady Wildcats enjoyed one of their best home crowds of the season down the stretch. They needed it, too, as Jonesboro trimmed the deficit to 26-23 with 6:33 left in the fourth.
El Dorado got the ball to Hicks, who was fouled and hit two at the line with 5:41 remaining.
With a five-point cushion, the Lady Wildcats, smartly, began gnawing at the clock. The next points came on a length-of-the-court inbounds pass to Diamond Hawthorne for a lay-up with 2:41 on the clock.
Jonesboro hit two free throws but Hicks answered with two at the line. Hicks would hit 12-of-16 at the line and scored nine points in the final five minutes as El Dorado closed the game out.
“She steps up when she needs to. I’m so proud of her,” said Rogers. “She’s leading us in the right way and we’re following her. That’s what we expect her to do.”
The senior went to the bench with 16 seconds left to a round of applause from the fans of both El Dorado and West Memphis.
Breya Clark, Larry and Hawthorne had four points apiece for El Dorado. Defensively, the Lady Wildcats moved Hicks to the top.
“The plan was to keep the guards out. We know they wanted to attack. They wanted to get to the rim. We wanted to keep the guards pushed out so we needed some length up there to keep the ball from getting in to their bigs,” Rogers explained. “(Hicks) got a bunch of tips up there at the top. That was the plan, keep the guards pushed out and shadow the bigs inside and try to make them beat us from outside and it worked.”
El Dorado held Jonesboro scoreless for the final seven minutes of the third quarter.
The Hurricane scored on field goal during an eight-minute stretch in the first half and had one basket in the final 6:33 of the fourth.