Lady Devils tame Lady Lions

Lady Devils tame Lady Lions

Back-to-back wins puts West Memphis girls in playoff contention

WM School District With her team scratching and clawing to work its way back into state tournament contention, West Memphis girls coach Sonja Tate had to rely on her team’s desire Tuesday night at Lehr Arena.

It was clearly not one of their better performances when the Lady Devils began the game in a 2-for-16 shooting funk after one full quarter and trailing Searcy by as many as seven points in the first half.

But junior point guard Aryah Hazley willed her team to a 45-41 victory by pouring in a game-high 23 points.

The win pulled the Lady Devils (12-7 overall, 5-4 in the 5A-East Conference) into a three-way tie for third place in league standing with Mountain Home and Jonesboro.

A loss to Searcy, which came into the game 4-17 and 0-8 in conference play, would have been devastating for Tate’s club. Nevertheless, she was more vocal about how unhappy she was with her team’s effort rather than the victory.

“We came out with the win…I guess that’s the positive,” said Tate. “We came out flat-footed. Maybe because it wasn’t a big-time (team) we were playing. But we watched video of (Searcy) just before the game and what they did in the game was exactly what we saw on video.”

For the second straight game, Hazley provided more than 50 percent of the Lady Devil offense (51.1 percent). She scored all but six of her team’s points in the fourth quarter.

“One thing we talked about after the game was how we didn’t want to be so one-dimensional on offense,” said Tate.

“We’re relying too heavily on Aryah and teams are going to start doubling her.”

Searcy’s 2-3 zone defense confounded the Lady Devils all night. They ended the first half making only 5 of 27 shots from the field, although things heated up just a tad after that. West Memphis sank 5 of 19 shots in the second half.

The team’s saving grace, however was in the turnover department, where the Lady Devils committed only nine miscues while forcing Searcy into 24 turnovers.

West Memphis also outrebounded the Lady Lions 27-24.

Searcy held a 30-24 lead with 1:37 left in the third quarter before the hosts scored the final six points of the stanza to pull even heading into the final eight minutes.

It was then that Hazley took over the game.

A three-point play by junior center Tierra Bradley with 6:45 to play in the game gave West Memphis the lead for good at 35-32. But it took Hazley’s accuracy from the freethrow line to win it for the Lady Devils.

Hazley sank 11 of her 13 free throws in the game, including 8 of 9 in the fourth quarter.

Nursing a 41-36 lead with 1:08 to play in the game, Hazley was knocked to the floor by Searcy’s Taylor Burch, who was called for an intentional foul. After sinking both of those free throws for a seven-point Lady Devil lead, the home team was assessed a technical for leaving the bench on the intentional foul.

However, Searcy’s best shooter, Alexis Broadway, who paced her team with 20 points, misfired on both of those techs.

From there, West Memphis survived with apt damage control.

“We just kept on grinding it out,” Tate added.

Bradley added 8 points for the winners while senior Kenya Freeman provided 5.

Burch tacked on 8 points to the Searcy total and Eliana Oden pumped in 6.

The Lady Devils travel to league-leading Nettleton on Friday night.

By Billy Woods