By ANN THARP
Special to The Leader
The Beebe Badgers (5-10, 3-3) hosted the Wynne Yellowjackets (4-13, 1-5) Tuesday night and came away with the 67-46 victory. It was only a three-point Badger lead at the half, but Beebe outscored the visitors 44-26 in the second half for the 5A-East Conference win.
“I thought in the first half their No. 5 Marrs hit a lot of tough shots,” said Beebe coach Ryan Marshall. “We tried to push the lead early and he hit some tough shots. I thought the second half we did a good job of attacking in our transition a little bit better. We really did a good job on the defensive boards, not allowing those second-chance shots. They took a lot of long threes, but we did a better job of making sure they didn’t get a second. We’ve got to get better at the free-throw line. Overall, we did a really good job of taking care of the ball. I think a big part was that we didn’t give them easy baskets.”
The Yellowjackets scored three baskets before the Badgers got on the board in the first quarter. Zach Baker scored first, then Tanner Chapman hit a pair of free throws and Tyler Childress hit a three with less than five seconds to go and Beebe had scored seven to go ahead 7-6 at the end of a quarter.
Childress sank a three-point basket to start the Badger scoring in the second quarter.
Baker had a two-point basket, and then a two-pointer plus one free throw to up the lead to 15-6 before Wynne scored again.
Childress had two more three-pointers and Baker a dunk for a 23-17 advantage before Wynne’s Ramantoe Marrs hit his second three of the quarter to close the score to 23-20 at the half.
Kendrick Clark scored a traditional three-point play for the Yellowjackets to knot the score at 23 to start the third quarter. The Badgers led 29-27, and then maintained the lead for an advantage of 45-32 at the end of the third quarter. Chapman led the way in the quarter with 12 points.
Beebe scored six two-point baskets and 10 of 14 free throws to outscore Wynne 22-14 in the final quarter and secure the win at 67-46. One of the two-point baskets was scored by Chapman on the execution of a sideline out-of-bounds play, and one was a dunk by Baker.
Chapman led all scorers with 21 points. Other scorers for the Badgers were Childress with 17 points, including five three-pointers, and Baker with 16 points.
Marrs led Wynne with 16 points, and Walton Chandler added 15.
Beebe shot 57 percent from the field and was 17 for 26 from the free-throw line. Wynne was 40 percent from the field and 7 of 11 at the stripe.
