Fayetteville continues winning ways in finale

FORT SMITH — After a slow start in 6A-West conference play in January, Fayetteville finishes the regular season on a high note in preparation for next week’s Class 6A State Tournament.

The Bulldogs won for the ninth time in 11 games, pulling away in the second half to defeat Fort Smith Southside 68-40 victory in a 6A-West season finale Friday night at Southside Arena.

Fayetteville (20-10, 10-6) will be the 6A-West’s fifth seed and will play North Little Rock at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday in the first round of the 6A Tournament at Rogers High School.

“When we were 1- 4 ( in conference play), it was pretty dark for a couple of days,” Bulldog coach Brad Stamps said. “We did a good job of rallying our kids and the assistant coaches did a good job of rallying me. We told them we cannot changed what has already happened, so let’s take the rear-view mirrors off and don’t look back. Just focus on what is ahead.

“We have not been perfect in the last 11 games, but we are playing our best basketball right now. We the state tournament next week, playing our best is what is important.”

The Mavericks (5-23, 1-15) battled for a half, using a

Yazed Taforo layup with 4:38 left in the second quarter to get to within 15-13.

Southside was still within 25-21 on a pair of George Harrell free throws with 53 seconds left. Fayetteville then scored the final six points of the half, the final two baskets in the final 22 seconds of the half on layups off Maverick turnovers to open up a 31-21 Bulldog advantage.

“Coming into the locker room at halftime, it feels a lot better with a 6-0 run and some momentum to end the half,” Stamps said. “We were able to get a couple of steals and runouts for easy baskets when we turned up the pressure.”

Fayetteville then outscored Southside 27-8 in the third quarter to build a commanding 58-29 lead. A pair of baskets by Jaiden Wilson and Jaxson Jorgensen gave the Bulldogs a 62-29 lead early in the fourth quarter to invoke the AAA Sportsmanship rule.

“We switch from a zone press to a man press to make them handle the ball against our pressure,” Stamps said. “We also did a better job of attacking their zone from the interior, we had hard cutters to the baskets. I cannot tell you how many assists we had attacking from the interior.”

Fayetteville had three players in double figures. Ornette Gaines and Rex Rusher each had 12 while Jadyn Haney added 10. Taforo scored 15 to lead Southside.