GRAVETTE — For about 8 minutes last Tuesday night, nothing could go wrong for Farmington.

The Lady Cardinals’ stingy defense forced plenty of turnovers, their passes were crisp and their shots went in. The impressive run gave Farmington a 17-0 lead early in the first quarter that later propelled it to a 60-41 victory against Gravette.

In the first quarter alone, Farmington (8-8, 1-3 4A-1 Conference) made 56 percent (9 of 16) of its shots and forced the Lady Lions into eight turnovers.

“I thought, early on, we were taking really good shots and were in the flow of our transition,” Farmington coach Brad Johnson said.

Meanwhile, Gravette (7-8, 2-2) couldn’t find any kind of rhythm until the start of the second quarter, when it had an 11-2 scoring run to pull within seven points.

During the Lady Lions’ comeback, senior Julia Himsl scored five points and Taylor Detring hit a 3-pointer with 2 minutes, 55 seconds left before halftime, giving Gravette a renewed sense of hope.

“Offensively, we were stilljust a little unsure what we were supposed to do when (Farmington) changed defenses,” Gravette coach Duane Thomas said. “That caused us confusion. But to come back the way we did, I’m proud of that - we have to learn to continue fighting and not turn the ball over. We believe we can play with anybody.”

Despite shooting 60 percent (15 of 25) from the foul line, Gravette never found a way to pull back within 14 points.

Leading the offense for the Lady Lions were Himsl and Samantha Vanotterloo with 12 points apiece; Bayley had 8 and Detring and Nichols each added 5.

Farmington 91, Lions 29

Farmington jumped out to a huge lead in the first half and never looked back in a 62-point victory over Gravette.

Gravette (3-12, 0-4) never found a way to overcome too many miscues in the game, committing more than 20 turnovers and shooting less than 40 percent from the floor.

Leading the Lions scoring was Nick Hendren with 6; Strzlecki, Alexander, O’Brien and Montee each had 4, Daniels 3 and Greenhaw and McGarrah 2 each.

Sports, Pages 6 on 01/20/2010