West Memphis girls too much for Pine Bluff at home
Lady Devils power past Lady Zebras
WM School District If there was anything to glean from their 57-28 blowout victory over Pine Bluff on Tuesday at the Devil Dome, it was the West Memphis Lady Devils' willingness to sustain their will on an inferior opponent.
The West Memphis girls scored the first 17 points of the game and then as head coach Erica Leak kept the first rotation in the game, the Lady Devils did not let up.
At the end of the first quarter they were on pace to shatter the 100-point mark, leading 27-6, and they headed into the locker room at halftime with a mercy rule already in play, leading 42-14.
'We always say leave no hope for rope,' commented Leak.
The victory improved the Lady Devils' record to a perfect 4-0 on the season with an idle weekend upcoming and their next opponent set to be Memphis Central exactly one week from the Pine Bluff game.
'We wanted to take care of business early,' said Leak.
'When you're the dominant team you don't want to play around. We're trying to prepare for our conference.
We're trying to be in that top four.'
In reference to qualifying for the state tournament by being in one of the top four places in the 5A-East Conference, Leak used a heavy understated theme.
Not only should her troops finish in the top four, they should be in the running with Jonesboro for the East championship and then prepped for a deep run in the state tournament.
The Lady Devils' top three, all returnees from last season's state runner-up team,
Continued on Page 15 BLUE DEVILS (cont.)
came away with a 38-31 victory.
The first-year Blue Devil Boss is waiting on someone to emerge as the team's bonafide point guard and meanwhile Clay will watch his under-sized but relentless front court continue to no back down from a fight.
While the loss was disappointing it's possible the Blue Devils won't be guarded the rest of the season as tough as they were on Tuesday night.
'(Pine Bluff) was tenacious on defense and they pushed us out of our offense,' said Clay. 'We had to make long passes all night. That's one reason why we had so many turnovers. That's what you see when you don't have a real good ballhandling guard. We probably had 20 turnovers tonight.'
The Blue Devils had to earn all their points against Pine Bluff. But they led all through the first half. They held a 7-6 lead after one quarter and an 18-17 lead at halftime.
Their biggest lead of the game, 16-9 with 2:10 left in the second quarter, came as a result of the Blue Devil full-court press.
However, Pine Bluff's already harsh defensive effort was only just beginning. It held West Memphis to just one field goal in the first six minutes of the third quarter and it led to the Zebras' 25-23 lead heading into the final stanza.
By that time the Blue Devils still couldn't get anything going on offense and Pine Bluff solved the West Memphis zone as point guard Courtney Crutchfield broke free and 6-foot-6 Jordan Harris ruled the paint.
Crutchfield paced Pine Bluff with 11 points, six of which came in the fourth quarter, and Harris had 10, including an alley-oop slam dunk with 6:24 left in the fourth quarter to give the Zebras a 29-23 lead.
'(Harris) gave us problems, but our small guards have no business being in the lane against a 6-6 kid in the paint,' Clay explained.
'But that's something we can correct.'
Dequarious Birdo of West Memphis led all scorers with 12 points while Kam Barnes, the team's leading scorer, scored just 6 and had a tough night finding room to operate around the basket with Harris patrolling that area.
Keiarras Townsend added 4 points for the Blue Devils while junior Chico Washington scored 3.
The Blue Devils will play at least one more game at the Devil Dome, on Dec. 7 against Memphis Central.
The site for the Blue Devil Classic on Dec. 10-11 is still on hold.
It's possible the new floor at Lehr Arena will be finished by then. But if not, the Classic would be played at the Devil Dome.
