PEA RIDGE — Blackhawks 67 Gravette 39

The Blackhawks boys’ basketball team earned a regional berth by blasting the Gravette Lions 67-39 in the 1-4A District Tournament second round before earning a spot in the district championship game with a barn burning 59-55 semi-final victory over Prairie Grove.

Just a couple of days removed from a 69-60 conquest of Shiloh, the ’Hawks entertained Gravette on Feb. 16 in a quarter-final match that proved to be a mismatch as Pea Ridge raced out to a big lead early and was never threatened.

The ’Hawk lead grew to 30 points by the end of the third quarter, invoking the mercy rule that shortened the contest.

“We were hitting on all cylinders tonight, with all our players showing hustle and drive,” a pleased coach Charlie Clark said. “We will be in good shape this week, I truly believe.”

Against Gravette, the visitors came out firing, ripping a 3-pointer to draw first blood. The Lions’ 3-0 lead quickly disappeared when Kasey Cooper buried his own 3 to tie the score. The Lions responded with a jump shot for a 5-3 lead but the ’Hawks countered with a 7-footer by Cooper and a driving layup by Dakota Woodward to push Pea Ridge ahead 7-5.

Gravette tied the game again with a short jumper then charged ahead with their second trey, leading 10-7 midway through the first quarter. After Ethan Higgins edged the ’Hawks closer with a successful free throw, the bottom dropped out for Gravette when sophomore Jacob Hall rang up two successive 3-pointers followed by a trey byWoodward as Pea Ridge got out to a 17-12 lead, a lead the ’Hawks would not again relinquish.

While Gravette managed another trey, the ’Hawks came back with layups by Thompson and Higgins as well as free throws by Cooper and Thompson to put a serious hurt on the Lions. The ’Hawk scoring outburst put the local cagers up by a 27-15 count by the end of the quarter.

Both teams battled on even terms for the first half of the second quarter with free throws by Higgins and Thompson and a layup by Hall matching a 5-point run by Gravette as Pea Ridge led 32-20. The Gravette ship began to sink when Higgins, Woodward and Hall slipped through the Lion defenders for successive layups before Hall sank one from downtown as Pea Ridge improved the lead to 41-25 with 1:30 left in the half. Thompsonmanaged to drive in for another layup before time expired as Pea Ridge went into intermission with a 43-25 bulge.

Any hopes of a Gravette comeback were quickly extinguished with Cooper scoring an unanswered layup followed by a pair of Thompson free throws to start the third quarter. Gravette came up with a free throw and layup but the ’Hawks had successive layups by Cooper, Thompson and Higgins to inflate the lead to 55-28 with 4:10 left in the quarter. Gravette put up 5 points for a mini-comeback but Pea Ridge used a Hall 3-pointer and layups by Woodward, Thompson and Cooper as the quarter ended Pea Ridge on top 66-35.

Cooper’s last-second layup triggered the mercy rule as Pea Ridge had a 66-35 lead headed into the fourth quarter. The final periodsaw coach Clark clear his bench with reserve players taking over the floor. The ’Hawks scored but a single point in the final quarter, a lone free throw by Isaac Mangrum, but the Lions found the going tough against the young ’Hawk defenders. Meanwhile the Lions dropped in a pair of layups for final 67-39 tally.

Hall led the scoring with 19 points with Cooper, Higgins, Woodward and Thompson also scoring in double figures with 15, 13, 10, and 10 points, respectively.

***

Blackhawks 59 Prairie Grove 55

The Prairie Grove game was as tight as the Gravette game was one-sided. After losing both regular season matchups with the Tigers, Pea Ridge was determinedto go all out to top their Washington county rival in the district semi-finals.

“I was proud of my boys in that they played hard and made good decisions on the floor,” coach Clark said. “Joe Adams was huge in the middle blocking shots and thwarting their offense. Offensively, we changed our tactics against Prairie Grove a little by encouraging the boys to just shoot. In our losses earlier, we probably tried to do too much from set plays and passed up shots we should have taken.”

While the ’Hawks never led at any point in the first quarter, they did succeed in tying twice with the first quartet ending inan 8-8 stalemate. Prairie Grove jumped out first with a 2-0 lead but Thompson’s 15-footer soon tied the score. The Tigers used a layup and a 7-footer to climb back on top 6-2 but after Adams converted a pair of free throws, the ’Hawks used a Thompson layup and a jump shot by Hall to offset a Prairie Grove score in the paint as the quarter buzzer sounded with no team in front.

The Tigers reassumed the lead with a three-point play to start the second quarter but the ’Hawks exploded for 11 points in three minutes to storm to a 19-13 lead. Field goals by Hall, Higgins, Woodward and Cooper along with Higgins,Hall and Adams free throws fueled the charge to the lead. After Hall’s trey answered a rebound score by Prairie Grove, the visitors went on a 7-point run to end the quarter as the half expired with the ’Hawks holding a precarious 24-22 advantage.

A 3-point barrage by the ’Hawks to start the third quarter nearly sent the Tigers reeling out of the gym as Pea Ridge shot out to a 39-26 advantage in a little less than four minutes. The ’Hawks’ big man Thompson shocked both the crowd and the Tigers by stepping up and ripping two of the first three treys by the ’Hawks. Woodward and Cooper also knocked down two3-pointers in the outburst. Prairie Grove then blunted the rally with four field goals and three for three free throw shooting to end the third quarter with the ’Hawks only getting a double bucket effort by Thompson. Pea Ridge then went into the last period holding a less than secure 43-35 lead.

While the Tigers were successful in scoring a pair of field goals in their first two possessions, the ’Hawks enjoyed a shot from behind the arc by Cooper and a layup by Thompson that drew a foul which the power forward converted to stretch the lead to double figures at 49-39. The Tigers wouldn’t lay down, scoring 6 points in a 60-second span, but four-of-four free throw shooting by Higgins kept them at bay with Pea Ridge leading 53-45 with a little over two minutes remaining in the contest.

Local fans grew tense when the Tigers scored 5 points in less than a minute as the ’Hawk lead suddenly looked vulnerable at 53-50. With the game clock slipping under a minute remaining, Higgins came up with a big drive to the basket, resulting in a layup and a 55-50 lead. Prairie Grove answered with a field goal before a Tiger foul sent Cooper to the line. The lanky senior hit both shots for a 57-52 lead but a Tiger 3-pointer seconds later shrank the lead to just a deuce.

With the ’Hawks sitting on the ball with the clock under 20 seconds, the Tigers fouled Hall who frustrated that strategy by hitting both free throws for a 59-55 lead. After the Tigers shot the ball three times on their last possession, Higgins fought through for a defensive rebound which drew a foul from the guests with just 4 seconds left. Though the free throws were missed, the clock ran out before the Tigers could mount a threat thus sealing the ’Hawks’ victory.

Thompson led the scoring with 15 points followed by Cooper with 13, Higgins with 12, Hall and Woodward with 8 each and Adams with 3.

Sports, Pages 9 on 02/23/2011