Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Cards Crush Blackhawks
Trio Leads Scorers
GENTRY — Despite boasting identical 12-2 conference records and sharing the regular season 4A1 crown with Pea Ridge ( 22- 6), Farmington (21-5) was regulated to the second seed in the district tournament.
On Feb. 16, the Cardinals exacted a bit of payback when they decimated the Blackhawks, 59-36, in the finals of the district tournament held at Gentry.
“Two good teams played tonight and the final score was not indicative of how close the game was,” said Cardinals’ coach Beau Thompson.
Farmington’s Alex Dellett capitalized on the attention teammate Chase Garner drew in the post to punish the Blackhawks with aggressive drives to the hoop. Dellett parlayed his success attacking the basket into 20 points, which led all scorers.
“I thought Alex Dellett was the difference in the game,” said Thompson. “He picked a good time to have his best game of the year.”
Despite all the Blackhawk attention, Garner was able to complement Dellett with 16 points, most of those come from the painted area. Josh Mueller joined Dellett and Garner in double figures with 15 points, 8 of those coming from the free-throw line in the fourth period when the Cardinals were trying to “ice” the contest.
Dellett scored 13 points in the 1st half, 7 of those coming in the opening period, as the Cardinals built a 14-7 lead. Farmington led by 10 points with 2:40 left in the second period following a Dellett basket, however, Pea Ridge closed out the frame by scoring the final 6 points, shrinking the lead to 25-21 going into intermission.
Garner started enforcing his will in the third frame, scoring 9 points and helping the Cardinals build a 12-point advantage with his inside bucket with a minute left in the period. The Blackhawks got a basket from Nick Deleon
before the end of the stanza, cutting the lead to 42-32, heading into the fourth.
Pea Ridge tried to make-up the difference by launching a 3-point barrage in the final frame, but felt like someone attached a lid on the basket, because the Blackhawks shot an atrocious 1 of 8 from beyond the arc.
While Pea Ridge was futilely flailing away from downtown, the Cardinals were strategically getting the ball to Mueller, their steadfast floor leader. The senior point guard reeled off a couple of baskets and also coolly converted 8 attempts from the charity stripe, giving him 12 points in the period and helping the Cardinals claim their 59-36 final margin of victory.
“Farmington clearly deserved to win tonight, so we’d like to congratulate them,” said Blackhawks’ coach Charley Clark.
Following Farmington’s trio of double-digit scorers in the Cardinal’s ledger were Matt Brackett and Jimmy Hollingsworth with 3 points apiece and Skylar Barnes with 2 points.
The Blackhawks were led by Jacob Hall who finished with 10 points.