Van Buren hosts Bentonville in tight matchup

The top of the 7A-West boys standings is tight among three teams. Tuesday, it will get even tighter or it will start to loosen up when Van Buren hosts Bentonville. Despite the loss of Malik Monk, now the Kentucky wunderkind, the Tigers are still at the top of the conference standings, tied with Springdale Har-Ber at 7-1. Van Buren is a game back at 6-2. "We've put ourselves in a really good position," Van Buren head coach Austin Trembley said. "We've got a first-place team coming in. We were fortunate to beat Springdale Har-Ber, which is tied for first place. Bentonville has a really good team. It's no secret they lost Malik Monk, and when you lose him it's going to take a long time to figure out how they need to play." Bentonville beat Van Buren in the Class 7A semifinals last year in an overtime classic. Cabot stunned Bentonville and Monk in the championship game a week later in Hot Springs. This year, Bentonville was just 4-8 before conference play started, and the Tigers have seemed to have found themselves under head coach Jason McMahan. "Jason McMahan has done a tremendous job of getting them to understanding how they need to play as a team, and they're clicking and they're rolling," Trembley said. "They go 6-5, 6-5, 6-5 and 6-5. They have a lot of team size. We'll have to play a lot better than we did (Friday) to win, but we're really excited about it." Both teams were locked in close games Friday. Bentonville outlasted Fayetteville, 80-70, scoring 45 points in the second half and winning despite giving up 31 points in the fourth quarter. While Bentonville and Fayetteville were combining for 150 points Friday, Van Buren and Bentonville West were locked in an old-fashioned defensive struggle with Van Buren pulling away from a 21-21 tie near the end of the third quarter to win, 35-25. The 60 combined points is the fewest in a 7A-West game since 2014 when Bentonville beat Har-Ber, 29-28, in the second conference game of the season. Monk, then a sophomore, scored 17 points. The 25 points allowed Friday by Van Buren marks the conference's best defensive effort since Fayetteville beat Har-Ber, 62-24, in the next-to-last conference game in 2013. That's how Van Buren won Friday. "Definitely with defense, not offense," Trembley said. "Defensively, our kids were very responsible and disciplined understanding the scouting report. We gave up too many offensive rebounds, of course, that's Bentonville West's M.O. They're very good at it. Offensively, whatever ground we had gained, we took a step back. That happens sometimes. I give West credit for that." For the Pointers to win despite making just 14 field goals in 40 attempts and committing 16 turnovers says a lot about the maturity of a young team. "It really does," Trembley said. "The Springdale game was a lot like this. They're a very good defensive team. It was very low scoring, and we made the plays when we had to. I think it does say a lot about a team when you play really ugly, and you win. I'm proud of the guys for that." Jones out for Lady Pointers Bailey Jones suffered a broken shooting arm at Fayetteville and will miss the remainder of the season. "Not only Bailey's ability to shoot the 3-pointer stretches the floor but she played a lot of minutes," Van Buren head coach Chris Bryant said. "She's started every game since she's been here." Jones moved to Van Buren from Alma after her sophomore year and immediately was a shooting threat for the Lady Pointers. Her experience also provided Van Buren with a fourth veteran senior on the floor this season. "Anybody that knows Bailey or that's done preparation work on us knows she's a knockdown 3-point shooter," Bryant said. Jones averaged 8.8 points per game this season but more importantly provided another shooter for opponents to guard. Sophomore Jentry Myers started in her place Friday, and junior Irasema Sandoval also will pick up additional playing time in place of Jones. "She's the biggest cheerleader over there now," Bryant said. "She's Jentry's and Ira's biggest encourager. She's a liaison between the coaching staff and those girls. She knows the things that are important to the coaches and she's transferring that knowledge to those kids. She's a super kid. You just hate to see any kid's senior year end early. She's still going to be an integral part of what we have going further." Friday, Myers hit a pair of 3-pointers from the left corner in the first four minutes of the game, the spot normally manned by Jones. "She's a very capable shooter," Bryant said. "She started the game with a couple of knockdown 3-pointers. We don't have to change who we are. You don't lose a shooter like Bailey and not be as good a shooting team, but we're going to try to compensate in other areas." Friday, albeit in a blowout 69-20 win against Bentonville West, Van Buren had 28 points and nine rebounds off the bench. Cassidy Cooper had 10 points. Kayleigh Evans had three points and seven rebounds.

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VAN BUREN HOSTS BENTONVILLE IN TIGHT MATCHUP

LELAND BARCLAY

Times Record | 2/7/2017

PHOTO CREDIT: Van Buren High School Athletics