Basketball: Lady Pointers claw back for win

Four nights after cruising to a 49-point win, the Van Buren Lady Pointers had to scratch and claw for everything they could get. The Lady Pointers overcame foul trouble and a 10-point deficit to start the game to rally for a 41-36 win against Bentonville on Tuesday night to wrap up a two-game home stand to start the second half of the 7A-West round-robin schedule. Van Buren (17-4, 8-1) trailed 10-0 midway of the first quarter, but wiped out that deficit to tie the game at 17-17 with 5:11 left in the second quarter. "Bentonville's a good basketball team," Van Buren head coach Chris Bryant said. "They came in with a great, great plan and a great fight, and had a great competitive spirit about them. You could tell right off the bat it was going to be 32 minutes." Bentonville (11-11, 4-5) went back up, 24-17, at the half and led 28-23 with 4:37 left in the third quarter. The Lady Pointers managed just two 3-pointers in the first half in 11 attempts, but Lani Snowden drilled two in the opening minutes of the second half and cut Bentonville's lead to 28-23. Taylar Sutton, who picked up two quick fouls in the game and then her third just 1:34 into the second half, scored inside for Van Buren to start an 8-0 run to end the third quarter. Halie Jennen added a driving bucket, and Jamilyn Kinney added two free throws after a steal to give Van Buren it's first lead of the game at 29-28 with 3:35 left in the quarter. Jennen added a jumper inside for a 31-28 cushion. "I'm super pleased our kids' toughness and composure to battle back in the second half and start doing a lot of the little things that give you an opportunity to win in a game like that," Bryant said. "It wasn't going to be pretty tonight, you could tell right from the start. They weren't going to allow you to do what you do, that's a credit to them. Everything we got tonight we earned." Krista Clark, who scored 18 points for Bentonville and was trouble for Van Buren all night, scored inside to start the fourth quarter, and Sutton added a bucket underneath. Clark hit two free throws to draw Bentonville within, 33-32, with 7:11 left, but Sutton banked home a 3-pointer from the top of the key with 6:03 left. Van Buren slowed the game down after that, and after Kinney missed the front end of a one-and-one opportunity, Sutton grabbed the miss and scored with 61 seconds left for a 38-32 lead. "A lot of people think of us as an offensive team," Bryant said. "On a lot of nights, it's easy to see that when the shots are going in and you're lighting it up it gets easy and games get away. People aren't going to sit out there and let you have a h-o-r-s-e game. They didn't tonight." Van Buren gave up just one offensive rebound to Bentonville in the second half, gave up just a lone 3-pointer, and just four baskets in all in the final half. "We had to do everything possible to make them earn what they were getting," Bryant said. "Our toughness and our fight was off the chart in the second half." Jennen added two free throws with 10.8 seconds left for some final separation for the Lady Pointers. Sutton scored nine points to lead Van Buren. Snowden added eight. Bentonville 61, Van Buren 35 BOYS - Bentonville used scoring spurts of 8-0, 9-0 and 10-0 to open up a halftime cushion, and then a 14-0 run in the third quarter to pull away. Van Buren answered with an 8-2 run to end the third quarter with Beau Beckner, Presley Kindrix, K.J. Stewart and Jordan West all scoring baskets. West drained a pair of 3-pointers early in the fourth quarter to pull Van Buren within, 48-31, with 6:31 left but that was as close as the Pointers could get. Michael Shanks scored 16 points to pace Bentonville (12-9, 8-1), and Jordan Hemphill added 15 points and 10 rebounds. West led Van Buren (13-9, 6-3) with 18 points, including 12 in the second half.

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BASKETBALL: LADY POINTERS CLAW BACK FOR WIN

LELAND BARCLAY

Times Record | 2/8/2017