Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Lady Cardinals show strength coming into 2024
SPORTS EDITOR’S NOTE: The Ultimate Invitational Tournament semifinals and finals were played after an early holiday deadline.
FARMINGTON — Farmington head girls basketball coach Brad Johnson points to multiple reasons to be excited as conference play gets underway.
The Lady Cardinals (201, 3-0 4A-1) took a 13-game winning streak into Friday’s 4A-1 Conference game at Gravette.
Johnson’s drawn a sense of satisfaction with the level of execution and consistency attained by the Lady Cardinals at both ends of the court and in transition while facing an assortment of strong opponents coming into 2024.
The defending state champions, playing their last season at the 4A level for the foreseeable future before moving to 5A next season, appeared in their fourth straight Class 4A State Finals in 2023. They’ve squared off against the likes of Vachon, a St. Louis school and defending Missouri state champion, along with games against Collierville, Tenn., and Duncanville, an 11-time state champion in Texas which handed the Lady Cardinals their only loss (70-60) in the Texarkana tournament.
Johnson said the Lady Cardinals left no doubt they competed, despite coming up short against an impressive Duncanville squad.
Johnson points out the benefits derived from taking on a high caliber opponent like Duncanville, gaining valuable experience that keyed wins over 6A Cabot, a 2023 Class 6A state semifinalist, and 5A Mountain Home on its home floor.
Neither victory might not have happened without facing Duncanville, yet as good as they’ve been so far, according to Johnson, even his players will say the team isn’t a finished product quite yet.
“The competition has been fun. The kids have rallied around the challenges we’ve thrown in front of them,” Johnson said. “The schedule we put in front of them through the [holiday] break was extremely daunting. It was one that was going to put us on the road a bunch and put us up against some of the better teams in the state of Arkansas and then some of the better teams nationally in bordering states. We kind of adopted that mentality of forged by fire.”
Among the most recent highlights, Farmington claimed another Ultimate Invitational championship over the holidays at Mountain Home with junior guard Marin Adams named tourney MVP. In the tournament finals on Friday, Dec. 29, the Lady Cardinals defeated tourney host Mountain Home for the second time this season.
FIRST GAME VS. MOUNTAIN HOME
Both teams were 1-0 when Farmington met Mountain Home earlier this season, in the second game of the 20232024 season for both teams with the Lady Cardinals outscoring the Lady Bombers 19-9 in the fourth quarter to pull away for a 63-42 victory in the Jake Gray Invitational semifinals hosted by Valley Springs on Wednesday, Nov. 8.
In the third quarter of their previous meeting, Mountain Home shaved the Lady Cardinal lead to four points before Farmington forged a 44-33 lead going into the fourth period. Farmington generated a 12-2 run to start the fourth in that game.
TOUGHER SECOND TIME AROUND
Beating Mountain Home proved tougher the second time around. Farmington grabbed a 13-11 lead at the end of the first quarter on Thursday, Dec. 28, but the Lady Bombers outscored Farmington by nearly a 2 to 1 margin in the second and went into the half leading 26-21.
The Lady Cardinals reversed the second quarter damage by scoring 19 points while allowing 10 in the third quarter, enabling them to go into the fourth period with a 40-36 advantage. Farmington maintained its lead with a 16-13 scoring advantage in the fourth quarter. Marin Adams scored 19 points, Reese Shirey chipped in 13 and J’Myra London added 10 points for the Lady Cardinals.
In a strong tourney field, Cabot, which reached the 2023 Class 6A semifinals, placed third. Dumas was fourth; defending Class 1A state champion Mammoth Spring, fifth, Flippin, sixth; defending Class 3A state champion Salem was seventh and Paragould, eighth.