Blue Devils have hard road to 5A State Tournament
West Memphis beats Paragould, but tough challenges await
By BILLY WOODS
WM School District
The wins will not be easy to come by the rest of the way for the West Memphis Blue Devils.
Still missing a key piece in their lineup for a second straight game, the Blue Devils grinded out a 63-51 win over Paragould on Friday night at Lehr Arena.
The team came into the game looking for the right combination to lock up third place in the 5A-East Conference. But a wrench was thrown into the celebration plans as Greene County Tech slipped into Marion on Friday and upset the Patriots 53-49.
Now, the Blue Devils (15-9 overall, 7-5 in the conference) must defeat Greene County Tech in Paragould on Tuesday night in order to win third place. Tech defeated the Blue Devils 47-43 last month at Lehr Arena.
And that the Blue Devils will have to do so without second-leading scorer Kearrius Townsend, who pulled a hamstring last Tuesday in the game against Jonesboro, will present a big challenge.
“Right now we’re looking and searching for someone to put out there on the court,” admitted Blue Devil head coach Irving Clay. “We don’t want to rush (Townsend) back because when you make sudden moves in basketball it can reaggravate that hamstring. We’re not going to rush it.”
Although they won by 12, the Blue Devils struggled to beat Paragould (12-13, 3-9).
After building a 23-16 lead on a Max Reece 3-pointer with 5:36 to play in the second quarter, the Rams scored the final 9 points of the stanza to take a 25-23 lead into halftime.
From there, the lead seesawed back and forth and the hosts could claim a lead no bigger than 5 points until late in the fourth quarter.
It could have been a tidier performance for the Blue Devils, except they missed five consecutive free throws in the fourth quarter which would have put away the Rams quicker.
The lead neared double digits midway through the final quarter when Reece swished his second 3-pointer of the game to make it 50-41 with 4:49 left.
West Memphis’ two best free throwers, Reece and D.J. Barrett uncharacteristically missed some key charities before the team settled down just as it has for the most part this year in the waning minutes.
West Memphis connected on 7 of 8 foul shots in the final 2:25 of the game to seal the deal.
“I’m proud of the way the kids scrapped and played defense tonight,” said Clay. “And we got away with missing a lot of free throws. And we still won. The coaches and I are saying somebody must be praying for us.”
West Memphis went 13 of 22 from the free-throw line for the game.
Kam Barnes topped all Blue Devil scorers with 16 points while the emerging Kobe Williams, a junior, pumped in 15. Johnny “Chico” Washington added 10 points and sophomore Ronnie Townsend, in just his third varsity game this year, hit 7 points. Ashton Oakes paced Paragould with 14 points while Isaiah Jackson poured in 12.
Luke Martin (20) with the layup for West Memphis.
