By todd traub
Leader sports editor
North Little Rock’s first and third quarters were a bit too much for the Cabot girls to overcome Thursday.
Not that the Lady Panthers didn’t try.
Undefeated North Little Rock jumped to an early lead to beat Cabot 54-36 in the semifinals of the Central Arkansas Christian Invitational on Thursday night.
Cabot plays in today’s consolation round at 3 p.m.
North Little Rock led 17-10 after the first quarter but Cabot hung in and trailed 25-17 at halftime. The Lady Charging Wildcats then posted a 20-8 third quarter to take command.
“We didn’t have a real good third quarter,” Cabot coach Carla Crowder said. “We just didn’t score. Our kids work hard but they were out of sync.”
North Little Rock led 25-13 when Xena King made a layup with 2:39 left in the first half. Laci Boyett hit a layup with 1:54 to go and the teams traded possessions on a jump ball and a turnover before King missed and Jaylin Bridges got the loose ball rebound.
Fouls by North Little Rock’s King and Sandy Jackson kept the ball on Cabot’s end, and Elliot Taylor made two free throws with 8.2 seconds left to pull Cabot within 25-17 halftime.
“They’re just very quick and they got a few transition buckets,” Crowder said of North Little Rock’s fast start.
“We didn’t score but at halftime we were only down eight.”
Unfortunately the second quarter turned out to be Cabot’s finest hour Thursday as North Little Rock (7-0) took over in the third.
“We got a lot of transition stuff and kind of got our big kid involved,” North Little Rock Coach Darryl Fimple said of Lexus Williams. “Of course we did some defensive changes. I thought our kids did a really good job of mixing and matching our defenses.”
Fimple, the former girls coach at Lonoke High School, said he normally favors an up-tempo game, but that came and went on Thursday.
“More so than we showed tonight,” Fimple said.
“We had a lull there in the second quarter and we didn’t do a very good job there but the Cabot kids, they play so dadgum hard and Carla does such a good job it’s kind of hard to go on those long runs.”
“I don’t think the tempo bothers us,” Crowder said. “I think they’re so much quicker than we are.
Their foot speed is so quick and they shot it well also. We’re just working to get better and stop the dribble penetration.”
North Little Rock spread the ball to six different scorers as Kayla Brown and Lexus Williams each scored 15 points. Jerica James added 10.
“That’s kind of our strength, being able to play numerous kids and keeping the pressure on and kind of wearing people down,” Fimple said.
Taylor made 9 of 12 free throws to lead Cabot with 13 points and Kaki Thomas and Melissa Wolff had seven each.
Crowder was pleased with parts of her team’s game but said the Lady Panthers are still learning.
“We just learned some things that we need to improve on and what we need to do,” Crowder said.
“We’ve got to continue to block out. We blocked out part of the time and did a good job.”
