By RAY BENTON
Leader sports editor
The Lonoke Jackrabbits put on a stellar defensive effort in the first quarter of their tournament-opening game against Des Arc, and they needed to. The Jackrabbits missed their first nine shots of the game and neither team scored in the first half of the first quarter, but Lonoke finally began to find the range en route to a 52-41 victory in the first round of the Goldfish Classic on Thursday at the Gina Cox Center.
The team’s leading average scorer, guard Jamel Rankin, missed his first six shots. Second-leading scorer, post player Blake Mack, missed the game with illness, and it took a bit of time after a short layoff for the tournament hosts to find their way offensively. In the meantime, the Lonoke defense was stifling, holding the Eagles to just one field goal the entire quarter and taking a 13-3 lead into the second frame.
“You kind of expect that in the first game back from a break,” said Lonoke coach Dean Campbell. “I don’t know if you expect it to that extent. That was a pretty ugly start for both teams. The good thing is, you can always play good defense, and we managed to do that until we finally started finishing on offense.”
Another starter, guard Darrius McCall, suffered a bruised knee early in the second quarter and sat out the rest of the game.
Des Arc scored the first points of the game when guard Andrew Childers hit a transition layup with 3:55 left in the first quarter. The Eagles’ lead lasted 20 seconds and was the only one they had the entire game.
Lonoke guard Cedric Cooney cut to the basket on a give-and-go, took a pass from Darian Young and hit an open layup to tie it with 3:35 left. He then got a steal and a layup for a 4-2 lead that Lonoke would never relinquish.
Des Arc had good reason to be rusty as well. The class 2A football state runners-up were playing their very first game of the season with the entire team intact. Des Arc’s 6-foot-2, 210-pound point guard Danerryen Spencer, who is the team’s leading returning scorer, went 0 for 8 from the floor and scored just one point in the first half.
He found his range in the second half and single-handedly kept the Eagles from being blown out. He finished with a game-high 21 points on 7 of 17 shooting in the second half, and was 6 of 9 from the foul line.
Des Arc managed just three made shots in the second quarter as Lonoke pushed its 10-point first-quarter lead to 26-13 by halftime. And before Spencer could get going in the second half, Lonoke opened the third quarter with a burst of scoring that put it in control of the game.
Rankin and Tykel Gray each got steals that led to transition baskets, and Young hit back-to-back three pointers that gave Lonoke its biggest lead of the game at 38-17 with 4:30 left in the third. That’s when Spencer began lighting up the scoreboard, scoring 20 of his 21 points in the final 13 minutes of the game.
Spencer’s outside shot was not falling, and he got all his points through penetration and getting to the free-throw line. Campbell thought his team could have done a better job of stopping that penetration.
“We have to do a better job of stepping over and taking a charge,” Campbell said. “We just didn’t do it. As well as we played defense in the first half, that’s the one thing I was really disappointed about in the second half. We let him get to the rim way too easily.”
Once the game was in hand, Campbell went to his bench early in the fourth quarter and finally got what he was looking for from sophomore Yancey Cooney, who stepped over from his help side and took a charge from the formidable-sized Spencer.
With two starters out and the leading scorer having an off-shooting night, Young stepped in to provide most of the offense for Lonoke. He finished with a team-high 16 points on 7 of 13 shooting, including 5 of 8 from two-point range.
“You know we can go three and sometimes four deep with guys who can all be the scorer if we need them to be,” Campbell said. “Tykel came through for us at Southside and scored eight points in the second quarter when we were struggling a little bit. His defense is getting better too. He’s quick and active and gets some steals for us. I’d like to see that steal to turnover ratio tip to one side a little bit. Right now it’s about even, but he’s getting better and better.”
Gray finished with five steals in just three quarters of play on Thursday. Despite hitting just 3 of 17 shot attempts, Rankin finished with 11 points and grabbed nine rebounds for Lonoke. Spencer added 11 rebounds to finish with a double-double.
In other first round games, Watson Chapel hammered Hazen 82-46 with C.J. Robinson dropping in 23 for the Wildcats. England managed to hold on after blowing a 25-point lead to beat Bald Knob 57-52, but it was the Bulldogs’ Elijah Conley that led all scorers with 29 points. In the tournament’s opening game, Stuttgart beat Batesville 44-39 with Lamarion Luckett leading a balanced Ricebirds’ attack with 10 points.
The semifinal round was played last night after deadlines. The final round resumes today with the boys’ championship game set for 6:30 p.m.