By GRAHAM POWELL
Leader sportswriter
The Lonoke girls built a 10-point halftime lead against Southside Batesville on Friday at the Gina Cox Center, and despite a rough third quarter for the home team, the Lady Jackrabbits pulled away in the fourth to win the 4A-2 Conference matchup 39-28.
Lonoke (16-6, 8-2) scored the first six points of the game, and maintained a six-point lead at the end of the first quarter, leading 13-7.
Southside Batesville (10-12, 4-6) scored the first bucket of the second quarter, but senior guard Savannah Holman answered with a three-pointer with 6:48 to go in the period, which gave Lonoke a 16-9 lead.
After Holman’s three, the Lady Jackrabbits closed the opening half by outscoring the Lady Southerners 8-5 to take its first double-digit lead into halftime, leading 24-14. The final points of the first half came on an Eboni Willis putback after a miss by Jarrelyn McCall with 11 seconds remaining.
Holman’s three was just one of two total threes the Lady Rabbits made in the game, but they finished with that many attempts as well. Southside left the perimeter open all game, hoping Lonoke would take the open looks, but the host team only shot from the perimeter as a last resort, and did everything it could to find more high-percentage shots inside.
“They did that because I think we hit two threes at their place and everything else was on the inside,” said Lonoke girls’ coach Nathan Morris. “Jarrelyn had 25 (points) at their place, and I knew they were going to make a conscious effort to keep her off the dribble.
“Of course, they have no size compared to ours, so they had to go front and back (on defense), and they did a pretty good job. They put a smaller guard in there and her whole job was that. You’ve got everybody in the stands yelling for them to shoot, but they knew what the game plan was.
“Just keep moving it and eventually that’ll be open, and just keep squeezing down, then we can jump off on a layup, and we had that a couple of times.”
Within the first minute of the second half, Southside’s Kaitlyn Gramling hit a three-pointer that cut the Lonoke lead to seven.
Lonoke added a bucket at the other end soon after, but two quick buckets by McKenzie King, who led Southside with 12 points, cut the Lady Rabbits’ lead to five. Southside kept its deficit to five by the end of the period, trailing 30-25.
Neither team scored in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter. McCall scored the first points of the final quarter on a pair of free throws with 4:44 remaining, and the Lady Rabbits outscored the Lady Southerners 7-3 the rest of the way to set the final score.
Lonoke was outrebounded 23-19, but the host team won every other major statistical category. The Lady Rabbits made 14 of 36 shots from the floor for 39 percent, made 9 of 12 free throws for 75 percent and 2 of 2 threes.
The Lady Southerners shot 12 of 39 from the floor for 31 percent, made 3 of 8 free throws for 38 percent and went just 1 for 15 from three-point range for an abysmal 7 percent.
McCall led Lonoke with 12 points. Willis scored eight, and teammates Amanda Sexton, Kerasha Johnson and Ashlyn Allen added four points apiece.
The Lonoke girls continued conference play last night at Marianna, and will hit the road again Friday for its next 4A-2 game at Newport.
