Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Farmington Girls Blow Out Rivals
FARMINGTON — Prairie Grove orchestrated the role of an underdog almost perfectly for a half only to watch rival, Farmington, explode in the third quarter en route to a 74-43 win Tuesday, Jan. 5.
Trinity Johnson led the way for Farmington with a gamehigh 24 points. Tori Kersey finished with 19 points and Morgan Brye added 10. Trinity Dobbs scored 20 points for the Lady Tigers and Arianna Harrel added 11.
“The first you got to do is give a lot of credit to Prairie Grove just the way they came out of the gate. They went at it as possession by possession. They answered kind of everything that we threw at them and they came back and did what we expect Prairie Grove teams to do which is really grind and battle and play hard,” said Farmington coach Brad Johnson. “Obviously Trinity Dobbs is a phenomenal player and she got loose in the first half and played really well and scored a lot of points on us.”
Prairie Grove, playing without head coach Kevin Froud in covid quarantine, and several key players lost for the season with injuries, clawed and scratched its way to three leads in the first quarter. Dobbs scored 20 points in the first half and set up the game’s first basket with a drive and dish to Zoe Hubbs.
Farmington went in front 3-2 on the first of Trinity Johnson’s barrage of 3-pointers. Dobbs went baseline and sank a soft jumper. Trinity Johnson’s second trey created another lead change. Dobbs answered with a free-throwline pull-up. Tori Kersey’s putback shifted the lead to Farmington. Arianna Harrell who nailed a three from the wing gave Prairie Grove its last lead at 9-8 with 2:56 remaining in the first quarter, but the Lady Tigers hung around for a long time.
Farmington closed out the quarter on an 8-2 run beginning with Megan Hernandez’ offensive rebound and assist to Morgan Brye and capped by consecutive 3-pointers from Carson Dillard and Trinity Johnson to take a 17-11 lead.
The lead stayed at six on Trinity’s Johnson’s trifecta and moved to eight on Kersey’s free throws. Prairie Grove ended the first half on a 7-1 run. Dobbs made 4-of-4 free throws and scored off a give-and-go trimming Farmington’s lead to 31-29 at halftime.
“They played really hard in the first half, kind of surprised themselves actually,” said Prairie Grove assistant coach Rachel Harmon filling in for Froud. “We just came out a little flat in the third quarter.”
Farmington outscored the Lady Tigers 21-4 in the third quarter putting Prairie Grove in a 52-33 hole going into the fourth. The Lady Cardinals were just as productive tacking on another 22 points while holding Prairie Grove to 10 in the fourth quarter.
“The second half, one of the big differences for us, was we flipped the rebounding on them,” Brad Johnson said. “In the first half, they out- rebounded us and it was on the back of them just out-working us. Our kids did a really good job of owning that at the half, coming back in the second half and [playing] really intentional on both ends rebounding, making sure they got one shot on the defensive end; and pushing the tempo.”
FARMINGTON 74, PRAIRIE GROVE 43
Prairie Grove 11 18 4 10 — 43 Farmington 17 14 21 22 — 74 Farmington: Trinity Johnson 8 2-3 24, Tori Kersey 7 5-9 19, Morgan Brye 3 3-5 11, Megan Hernandez 3 3-4 9, Carson Dillard 2 4-6 9, Allie Devecsery 0 2-2 2, Mazzie Carlson 0 0-1 0. Totals 23 19-30 74.
Prairie Grove: Trinity Dobbs 7-19
6-6 20, Arianna Harrel 3-7 3-4 11, Zoe Hubbs 2-5 2-2 6, Kenleigh Elder 2-3 0-0 4, Charity Stearman 1-3
0-0 2, Chloe Hillian 0-4 0-0 0, Olivia Kestner 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 15-42 11-12 43.
3-Point Goals — Farmington 9 (Johnson 6, Brye 2, Dillard), Prairie Grove 2-13 (Harrell 2-4, Hubbs 0-1, Hillian 0-3, Dobbs 0-5).
Rebounds — Farmington 22, Prairie Grove 26 (Dobbs 7). Assists — Farmington 11, Prairie Grove 1 (Stearman). Steals — Farmington 12, Prairie Grove 2 (Dobbs 2).
Blocks — Farmington 0, Prairie Grove 0. Turnovers — Prairie Grove 17.