Blue Devils beat Paragould

Blue Devils beat Paragould

West Memphis survives onslaught of Rams three-pointers

WM School District PARAGOULD — The West Memphis Blue Devil players got an earful after the game from their head coach. Somehow, allowing 14 three-pointers will do that.

With each step the West Memphis defenders took toward getting out on Paragould’s shooters, the Rams simply stepped back further and the drilling kept on coming.

In the end, it took some resiliency and some fancy outside shooting from their own Immanuel Hoard for the Blue Devils to come away with a 64-54 victory on Friday night.

It was hard to imagine the Rams hadn’t won a 5A-East Conference game all season long watching swish after swish on their Senior Night. But the hosts sank 9 three-pointers in the first half to keep them close and then kept it going in the third quarter to put a legitimate scare into the Blue Devils (21-5 overall, 9-3 in the conference).

“We just weren’t locked in on defense,” said Blue Devil head coach Marcus Brown. “We had too many defensive lapses, but (Paragould) did shoot the ball well. I think they hit three of them off the glass. That was the kind of night they were having.”

Paragould sank 14 of 25 from three-point range for the game. The Rams were so dependent on threepoint shooting that they had just one two-point field goal through three quarters. All that said, the Blue Devils were saved by Hoard’s own outside accuracy. He drilled just two threes among his 19 points, because his feet were set just inside the bonus arc on four other field goals.

“That’s what Immanuel can do,” said Brown.

“Paragould came out in a box-and-one on Corliss (Brewer). I explained to him that’s a compliment.

Big Daddy (Cavin Paige) was able to find Hoard all night. He got some good looks and was able to knock those shots down.”

The win kept the Blue Devils in a tie for second place in the conference with Jonesboro, which drubbed Searcy 84-70 on Friday night. West Memphis’ two wins over the Hurricane, however, give them the tie-breaker for second place in league standings.

Although Brown fussed all night about his players not stretching far enough on defense, ironically it was the Blue Devil defense that proved to be the ignition to a big part of their offense.

West Memphis forced 15 Paragould turnovers and converted them into 14 points.

And once again, junior forward Chris Moore was just too tough to handle.

The 6-foot-6 muscle man scored a game-high 22 points.

Paragould tied the game 29-29 at halftime by hitting two late three-balls and then held a 35-31 lead with 6:28 left in the third quarter before the Blue Devils decided enough was enough.

Hoard scored 7 of the team’s 9 final points of the third quarter to give the visitors a 46-40 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

West Memphis then hit Paragould (6-17, 0-12) with a 12-2 run to open the fourth quarter to open up a 58-42 lead with 3:26 to play in the contest. “We actually had some spurts where we played good defense,” Brown admitted. “And that started the transition game for us. I applaud us for winning the game. We played tough and we played hard.

But we still are making mistakes we shouldn’t be making this time of year.”

Orchestrating the show as he always does, point guard Paige added 14 points.

Paragould’s Cole Duke drained 6 three-pointers on his way to 18 points while Hunter Wilmes hit for 11 and Jonah Treece scored 9.

The Blue Devils host Greene County Tech on Tuesday on Senior Night.

By Billy Woods