Lady ’Hawks climb in state rankings
Pea Ridge Lady ‘Hawks got a bump in the CBS Freeman/maxprep 4A State Poll, moving into the top 25 teams in the 24th position.
The girls are also in a tie for the fifth position in the district standings. If the girls won at Gravette Tuesday night, they would have the inside position to qualify for No. 5 and get to play the No. 4 seed in the district tournament. The four semifinalists in the district tournament would all qualify for the regional tournament following. Fall lower than fifth place and the regional tournament bid would have to come at the expense of one of the three state powerhouses in the conference, namely Prairie Grove, Farmington or Shiloh.
From top to bottom, the 4A-1 is the toughest girls conference in the state. 10. Batesville SS 19. Ozark 24. Pea Ridge 26. Gravette 27. Gentry 33. Berryville conference championship. However, the only way to grab the No. 1 seed would be for Shiloh to lose three of their last four, a not very likely scenario.
Getting a No. 2 seed going into the district tournament would also have one great side benefit. It would avoid the ’Hawks playing the Clarksville Panthers in the first round.
All teams getting past the first round of regionals qualify for the state tournament. Whoever earns the No. 4 seed after the district tournament will have the honor of playing one of the 4As all-time great teams in the Panthers. Clarksville has been hanging hugely lopsided scores on teams in their classfication with all their losses coming against 7A schools. Hopefully, the ’Hawks will eventually get to play Clarksville but only they have secured their ticket to move on. 9. Gravette 10. Waldron 13. Shiloh 16. Berryville 17. Pea Ridge 19. Prairie Grove 25. Farmington 27. Ozark 44. Gentry The state poll, which is based on a lot of factors (so they say) seems to be in need of some severe tweaking.
Although Shiloh has to date shown itself to be the class of the 201112 season, they are still ranked behind Gravette, a team with four (and counting) conference losses. Pea Ridge is narrowly behind Berryville. While the Bobcats trail the ’Hawks in the conference race, they did hand the ’Hawks one of their three league losses, so the order is legitimate. If the ’Hawks can win out this week, they could be on a rise toward the top 12.
Speaking of rising ’Hawks, I came away from last Friday’s win over Prairie Grove as impressed as I have been in a while. I had to check on my stats to make sure my observations were correct.
First of all, the ’Hawks went on a ferocious tear on defense in the second quarter as well as rallying for a bunch of points at the same time. The amazing thing is that they executed the first half as hard as they did but only drawing two fouls! Teams that press and grind the other team the way we did can expect to be called for a fair amount of fouls but that didn’t happen Friday. They played with precision along with speed and ferocity.
Checking over my shot chart, I noticed that scores were coming exclusively from two places: 3-point shots or points in the paint. Whenever the Tigers decided to pack it around the goal, the ’Hawks just shot (and made) 3-pointers. When the 3s started falling, the Tigers had to go out to cover, which left the big ’Hawks free to take passes to the goal. The insideoutside combination was enough to drive a visiting coach a little nuts. The Tigers coach went nuts enough to draw a technical foul, anyway.
When the ’Hawks are executing coach Charley Clarks’ offense the way he means them to, they are a force to reckon with. Of course, late in the game Friday when it looked like it was pretty much over, the ’Hawks did get a little sloppy with a succession of bad passes, etc.
When they bring their “A” game, the ’Hawks are going to be a tough draw in weeks ahead.
••• Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at prtnews@nwaonline. com. 35 Melanie Bechler 42 Taylor Church 44 Hailey Nesbitt 45 Kaylin Brouhard 50 Maggie Fletcher Coach Rick Jones 2/2 5:30 p.m. Berryville Away 7G, 7B, 8G, JG, JB 2/3 5:30 p.m. Berryville Home JVB, SG, SB 2/6-11 JH Dist. TBA 2/7 5:30 p.m. Farmington Away JVB, SG, SB
2/4 @ Berryville 8 9 7 8 7