By Jason Avery
News-Times Staff
Thanks to balanced scoring and rebounding, El Dorado’s home opener was a successful one, as the Lady Wildcats downed Mount St. Mary’s 41-27 at Wildcat Arena on Friday night.
Grace Murry was the lone El Dorado (1-1) player to reach double figures with 13 points along with five rebounds, but the Lady Wildcats used a strong rebounding effort and good defense to not allow the Belles (0-2) to pull within single digits at any point of the second half.
“I thought that we played well for the most part,” said El Dorado coach Destinee Rogers. “I thought they played hard. I thought on defense, we made some adjustments, and we did a heck of a lot better job in help side. One thing I can say about these kids is they play hard. They have great attitudes. They do what I ask them to do, and I can live with that any day.”
The first quarter was a seesaw affair with five lead changes before Diamond Hawthorne drilled a baseline jumper to give the Lady Wildcats a 9-8 edge.
Hawthorne’s basket was the start of an 8-0 run, and the junior added a layup as part of the spurt.
Lona Ceccherini ended the run with a basket to close the opening period, and Payton Grice, who led the Belles with 10 points, scored on a layup to open the second quarter to pull the visitors within 15-12, but the Lady Wildcats scored the next six points to push the lead to 21-12 with Hawthorne, Jessica Morton and Murry all scoring during that stretch.
Grice halted the run with a bucket to make it 21-14 with 3:31 left in the period, but El Dorado scored the last five points of the half with Murry burying a trey in transition with Martie Wade collecting an assist to give the Lady Wildcats a 26-14 lead at intermission.
Once the lead reached double figures, it never got below that margin.
Despite having only three field goals in the second half that included no baskets in the final 7:17 of the game, the Lady Wildcats were never threatened.
A big reason why was El Dorado’s ability to convert at the free-throw line.
Overall, the Lady Wildcats were 17-of-25 at the charity stripe with Morton, Wade and Murry combining to sink six free throws in the final stanza.
Rebounding was also crucial to El Dorado’s success.
Overall, the Lady Wildcats outrebounded the Belles 34-20, but it was a concentrated effort with five players snaring five or rebounds in the win.
Morton had seven boards to go along with nine points.
Hawthorne also had nine points with six rebounds.
“Jessica Morton and Diamond Hawthorne are huge for us on the boards,” Rogers said.
“They’re both juniors. They get in there and they crash the boards exactly how I want them to. They block out, and they do the little things. They’re controlling the boards for us. Diamond Hawthorne is going to the offensive boards and grabbing boards and getting putbacks and that’s what we need if we want to be successful this year.”
Adrianne Larry had six points and six rebounds off the bench, while Kierra Boone grabbed five boards.
If there is one issue that El Dorado needs to focus on, it’s turnovers.
“Obviously, we’ve got to continue to work on our turnovers,” Rogers said.
“We went to West Memphis Tuesday and played a benefit game, and they pressed us the whole time. I thought we handled it well until the end of the game.
“We had some turnovers towards the end of that game as well as this game, so we have to do a better job of being able to take care of the ball in those last minutes because we’re going to play other teams that are going to start pressing us towards the end of the game, and we have to be able to take care of the ball. We’re working on it. It’s a work in progress. We work on it every day.”
Rogers said the team has been working against El Dorado’s freshman boys team to get a feel for the type of pressure defense they could see as the season progresses.
“We’ve been going against the ninth-grade boys at least once or twice a week, and they press us the same way other teams are going to press us,” Rogers said. “We’ll get better at it. I’m not too mad about it because it’s fixable, and I keep telling them that. We’re going to get better at it. We just need to stay focused and just try to continue to fix it. Right now, we’re young and a little bit inexperienced, but I love that my team is getting the type of experience that they’re getting early on.”
In the JV game, El Dorado won 28-27.
Amyiah Williams followed her own miss and scored on a putback in the final seconds to lift El Dorado to victory.
Williams had 13 points and LaDiamond Maker added eight points for EHS.
El Dorado’s freshman girls also came away with a win, topping Mount St. Mary’s 34-31.
Erica Moore had 16 points and Tajah Edmondson chipped in with eight points for El Dorado.