Washington County Enterprise-Leader
Road win gives Lady Tigers better tournament seed
PEA RIDGE — Prairie Grove spoiled senior night for Pea Ridge by knocking off the Lady Blackhawks, 49-37, on Friday at Blackhawk Arena.
Prior to tipoff Pea Ridge recognized its five seniors on the girls varsity basketball team, Mia Dayberry, Rebecca Konkler, Zoey Litchfield, Lily Payne and Leah Telgemeier.
Telgemeier’s one of the seniors a young team relies on.
Telgemeier was promoted to varsity as a freshman when she was surrounded by good players during the 2020-2021 season. Pea Ridge coach Heath Neal recalls Telgemeier made what he terms “two major free throws to beat Harrison” during a 4A North Regional semifinal. Two weeks later Harrison defeated Farmington 68-54 to win the Class 4A State championship. Telgemeier also played in a March 10, 2021, state tournament win, 42-37, over Nashville, which won the 2022 Class 4A State championship.
Friday’s contest proved to be something of a dogfight all the way through with numerous ties and several lead changes.
The teams were deadlocked, 12-12, at the end of the first quarter.
Prairie Grove moved ahead 26-20 at the half by outscoring the Lady Blackhawks 14-8 in the second quarter. Lexie Henry scored 18 points for Prairie Grove. She had 8 in the second.
Brooklyn Winn canned four 3-point shots and topped Pea Ridge with 16 points. Half of those came in the third period when she hit a pair of threes and helped the Lady Blackhawks to a 10-6 scoring advantage.
Prairie Grove couldn’t find the basket often in the third period, yet the Lady Tigers retained a 32-30 cushion going into the final quarter.
Telgemeier scored all five of her points in the fourth quarter, including a 3-pointer, but Prairie Grove found balance with center K.K. Dreves scoring 6, Henry adding 5 and Camryn Cash converting a 4-point play to outscore the Lady Blackhawks 17-7 in the fourth and pull away.
The game was important because the loss left Pea Ridge (16-13, 7-7) one rung below Prairie Grove (18-8, 8-6) in the 4A-1 Conference final girls basketball standings — meaning the Lady Tigers get the No. 4 seed while the Lady Blackhawks are seeded fifth in this week’s district tournament at Gravette.
That put Pea Ridge into Tuesday’s first-round matchup against No. 8 seed, Huntsville (6-24, 0-14) at 4 p.m. at Gravette’s Lion Arena after press time. Should the Lady Blackhawks win, they would advance to a Wednesday, Feb. 14, quarterfinal rematch against Prairie Grove, also at 4 p.m.
Pea Ridge earned the bid to host the 4A North Regional next week at Blackhawk Arena. Neal doesn’t want anybody looking ahead, realizing the Lady Blackhawks have to play their way in.
“Obviously, we want to win. We know it’s a stepping stone. We can’t look ahead no matter where we’re going,” Neal said, while noting his squad’s battle tested on the road from playing in several tournaments in December. “We’ve got to win games at district first. If we can make it to regional, I’m confident in our staff that we can put together a game plan that will enable us to compete, but we’ve got to take first things first.”