Sills’ effort catapults Hurricane

CLASS 6A JONESBORO 65, PINE BLUFF 48

WEST MEMPHIS — Jonesboro’s Desi Sills saw the pass and thought it was going to end up over his head and into the third row of the stands.

Sills, however, leaped and not only saved the ball from going out of bounds, but came down with it, set his feet and made a deep three-pointer to put the icing on a 65-48 victory over Pine Bluff on Saturday.

A senior, Sills scored a game-high 22 points in the victory to send Jonesboro (255) back to the Class 6A boys championship game. Sills sat out much of the second quarter after picking up two fouls, one of which was a technical.

Two of Sills’ teammates picked up the slack as Chris Rufus scored five points, including a three-pointer in Jonesboro’s 8-0 run to close out the first half, giving the Hurricane a 27-22 lead at intermission.

“I think with Desi out of the game there were a lot of people who were wondering how we were going to manage this,” said Jonesboro Coach Wes Swift whose team went undefeated last season to win the championship. “The biggest factor in that portion of the game was we still had [point guard] Tony Hutson in there, and he did a great job getting to ball to his teammates and trusting them to hit the shots.”

The Hurricane led 43-39 after three quarters, but it began the fourth quarter by scoring the first 10 points. Sills was in the middle of nearly every scoring play.

He made two free throws to open the run and followed with a three-pointer. He then threw a perfect alley-oop pass to Kyle Moore, who finished the dunk.

Later, Sills hit a pull-up mid-range jumper in transition to give Jonesboro a 53-39 lead with six minutes left in the game.

Swift didn’t budge when he benched Sills after the two fouls.

“The technical put him on the bench,” Swift added. “The second foul kept him there.”

Sills said once he returned to the game, he was going to forget about the mistakes that put him on the bench.

“I admit I was [wrong],” he said. “I just took it upon myself and Tony to lead the rest of the team.”

Jonesboro forced 15 Pine Bluff turnovers, including 8 in the game’s final 9 minutes.

Hutson added 11 points for the Hurricane while Moore scored 10.

Pine Bluff (18-11) was led by Kaleb Higgins with 20 points while Tyler Reynolds scored 16.