Lady Devils roll Lady Lions

Lady Devils roll Lady Lions

Seary girls no match for West Memphis

By Billy Woods

WM School District SEARCY – With each game, sophomore Ta’Nya Burnett displays athleticism and a growing acumen for defense. On Tuesday night, Burnett burned Searcy with her thievery.

Burnett picked off four passes at the top of the Lady Devil 2-3 zone defense and turned them all into baskets on her way to 16 points to help the West Memphis girls to an easy 62-39 victory over Searcy.

After allowing the Lady Lions to stay within contention through the first eight minutes, Burnett and her defense allowed West Memphis to build an insurto the team’s first 5A-East Conference win.

West Memphis head coach Sonja Tate decided to play Burnett a few minutes in the preliminary junior varsity game, and she said it led to the rookie’s anticipation at the top of the zone.

“I was trying to get (Burnett) a feel for playing there,” said Tate. “I think she took advantage real good at the top of that zone because she has the length and the athleticism.

I think this was her best game, both offensively and defensively.”

It took a three-pointer by junior point guard Aryah Hazley, who led all scorers with 17 points, with three seconds left to give the Lady Devils (8-4 overall, 1 -1 in the conference) a 15-14 lead at the end of the first quarter.

By halftime, the lead ballooned to 33-23 thanks to 6 points by Burnett and two more steals that led to baskets by Hazley and junior center Tierra Bradley, who came off the bench to score 13 points.

Hazley, last year’s leading scorer, has been urged by Tate, a point guard herself during her Hall of Fame playing career, to display more of a pass-first mentality and the move has gotten more of Hazley’s teammates involved in the offense.

“I’ve told (Hazley) that when we go out on the floor that we have fun and play hard and that we’re not worried about how many points we’re scoring,” said Tate. “Sometimes I have to remind her that one mistake should not ruin the rest of her game.”

The Lady Devils took their second-quarter momentum into the early moments of the third quarter when they hit Searcy (4-11, 0-2) with a 14-2 run that effectively put the game out of reach.

Once again it was Burnett in the middle of all of it.

She scored one basket off an offensive rebound and two other buckets came via layup. The only things that seemed to slow her down were two brief bouts of muscle cramps in her legs that stopped play.

“I don’t think those had anything to do with her playing the JV game,” Tate said with a smile. “She only played a few minutes in the JV game. But she was very active on the court tonight.”

Senior Kenya Freeman added 4 points in a relief role for the Lady Devils.

Searcy was paced by Whitney Davis, who scored 12 points, while Alexa Broadway added 10 and Taylor Branch hit for 9.

The Lady Devils will play Friday afternoon at 4 p.m.

at home against highly- ranked Nettleton as part of the ESPN featured night at Lehr Arena.

After the Lady Devils game, the Blue Devil boys will host Nettleton and the evening will be capped off by ESPN 2’s broadcast of the Memphis East-Rancho Christian (Calif.) Academy contest, set to tip off at 8 p.m.

Sophomore Ta’Nya Burnett (13) was a big spark for the Lady Devils at Searcy.

Photo by Billy Woods