Farmington Girls Cling To Playoff Hopes

FARMINGTON — While the Farmington girls were still clinging to state tournament hopes on Tuesday, Feb. 23, the most important thing on the schedule was Senior Night.

After a slow start, the Lady Cards ground-down Morrilton for a 52-39 victory in 5A-West play in their final home game of the season.

“Senior Night can be a big emotional thing and I think the kids did a good job of handling it,” Farmington girls basketball coach Brad Johnson said. “We didn’t play our best game, missed some shots and made some turnovers but the important thing is they figured out a way to win it and now we have a chance to go play a really big game on Friday.”

Farmington (9-15, 6-7 5A-West) closed the season on the road at Vilonia (see game recaps below). As far as the 5A State Tournament goes, it’s pretty simple: If the Lady Cards win Friday, they are in. If they lose, they’ll stay home.

“It’s always a tough place to get a win,” Johnson said. “We’ve got nothing to lose but to go down there and play our best game and let’s see what happens.”

Johnson started all four seniors on his roster — Meaghan Dooley, Trish O’Connell, Tori Hamley and Josie Tevebaugh.

Hamley tore through the Morrilton defense all night, putting up 10 points in the first half and finishing with a game-high 16. O’Connell didn’t score in the first three quarters, then dominated the final frame with 14 points. Tevebaugh had four points.

Farmington overcame a 9-2 deficit to start the game with a strong second quarter to take a 22-17 lead at the half. Farmington led 34-26 heading to the fourth but it took some work to put the pesky Dogs away.

With the lead, Farmington was

able to spread out the offense a little bit and O’Connell got some good drives to the basket.

“Trish is our senior point guard and she’s played a lot of game for us,” Johnson said. “We had a little mismatch off the screen game and she saw it and took advantage of it for some big buckets.”

Freshmen Mary Kate Kordsmeier and Tania Templeton were impressive for the Devil Dogs (5-16, 0-13) with 13 and 12 points respectively.

Morrilton dominated the first half and put it on cruise control in the second half as the Dogs (15-12, 9-4) took home the win.

Morrilton led 20-11 at the end of the first and 38-22 by halftime.

Laken Dillard and Chave Zachary both had 18 points for Morrilton.

Farmington ( 12-13, 3-10) was already eliminated from contention for a state tournament berth, but the Cards have reason to look for a good season next year as juniors Matt Thomas and Matt Wilson led the way with 22 and 13 points respectively.

Farmington outscored Morrilton 29- 22 in the second half, but could not get within single digits.

BOYS MORRILTON 61, FARMINGTON 51