Morrilton handles Camden Fairview

CLASS 4A

MORRILTON 60,

CAMDEN FAIRVIEW 43

BLYTHEVILLE — The good far outweighed the bad for Morrilton on Wednesday.

The Devil Dogs overcame self-inflicted hiccups and a pair of second-half charges to sprint past Camden Fairview 60-43 in the first round of the Class 4A boys state tournament at Chickasaw Arena.

JaCorey Moseley finished with 26 points, 9 rebounds and 4 steals for Morrilton (249), which led from the outset to advance to a second-round game with host Blytheville today at 8:30 p.m. Markel Swinton chipped in with 13 points, and Malik Pleasant had nine points.

The Devil Dogs shot 48% (24 of 50) from the floor and had nine turnovers compared to 20 for Fairview (169), which lost its final three games of the season. However, Morrilton Coach Keith Zackery mentioned afterward that he did see things his team will have to be better at going forward.

“When you get to this point, nobody’s really young anymore, but we do have a young team,” he said. “We only have one guy that’s played meaningful minutes in a state tournament game before, and it showed, especially early, because we struggled at times. I do think that once the guys settled in, we played much better.

“But man, Camden is quick, really quick. We struggled keeping them in front of us.”

The teams went back and forth for the first five minutes of the game until a lay-in from Mosely began a quarter-closing 11-0 run that gave Morrilton a 20-8 lead.

That flurry continued into the second quarter when Yahir Ross made three-pointers on two straight possessions to extend the Devil Dogs’ advantage to 18 points. Morrilton still led 33-15, but the Cardinals seemingly began to get things going offensively and finished the quarter on a 7-0 spurt to get within 33-22 at halftime.

Fairview continued to chip away in the third quarter and got as close as 38-31 following a short jumper from Kyleston Gill with 3:52 to go. But the Devil Dogs scored 14 of the game’s next 17 points, and they cruised from there.

“I thought there were moments where we were playing the score,” Zackery said. “We talk about the process, and there were times where we’d come down and take a me shot instead of a Morrilton shot. Small things like that can come back to bite you, but I think we’ll continue to grow in that area.

“Still, I was really pleased with the way we responded late. We live to see another day.”

Traveon King scored 11 points and Gill tallied nine points for the Cardinals.

BROOKLAND 60, WATSON CHAPEL 40

Brookland (26-7) knocked down six of its 10 three-pointers in the first half and got big games from Masen Woodall and Tyler Parham to beat the Wildcats.

Woodall scored 19 points for the Bearcats, who led 30-23 at halftime but used an 18-5, third-quarter run to establish a big lead. Parham hit five three-pointers and ended with 16 points, while Cole Kirby had 12 points. Matt Harrell also scored eight points.

Joseph Dockett led Watson Chapel (26-9) with 16 points. Khamani Cooper contributed with 11 points.