Gentry boys come up short, girls pick up easy win at Pea Ridge

— After watching their early lead slip away late in the first half, Pea Ridge's boys were determined not to let it happen again Monday night and started the second half with an 11-0 run to pull away from Gentry and post a 60-45 victory over the Pioneers in a 4A-1 Conference game played a day earlier than previously scheduled.

Cameron Thompson had six points in the early outburst, which allowed Pea Ridge (13-3, 3-0) to turn a six-point half-time lead into a 46-29 cushion after Kasey Cooper's 3-pointer with 3 minutes, 57 seconds left in the third quarter.

"One thing we talked about in the locker room at half-time was the fact we got beat in the hustle category in the second quarter," Pea Ridge coach Charley Clark said. "We weren't playing at 100 percent, and when we play hard, we can be a good team.

"We just weren't hustling, and I thought Gentry played well. But in the second half, we went back to what we were doing early in the game, and we did a much better job of rebounding and playing defense."

Gentry (5-8, 0-2) was able to cut the Blackhawks lead 49-39 heading into the fourth quarter, then opened the period with a bucket by Kevin Scherer to make it an eight-point game. The Pioneers, however, didn't get any closer asPea Ridge scored the next seven points and put it out of reach.

"We justlaid an egg in the third quarter," Gentry coach Sean Price said. "It put us in another hole, but we had a couple of opportunities there to give us a chanceto get back in the game.

"I hate losing, but there are some positives that we can take out of this game. We had acouple of things that went wrong early, and I made a couple of mistakes," Price said. "But whenour kids could have folded, they handled themselves well. They battled the whole game, and that's a sign of maturity and getting better."

Cooper finished the game with 27 points to lead Pea Ridge, with 22 coming in the first half. Thompson was next in line with 18, 14 of those coming in the second half, and Woodward chipped in 10.

Scherer scored 13 of his 18 points in the first half to lead Gentry, while Joe Morris added 12 and Bryant 11.

Gentry 57, Pea Ridge 26

GIRLS - Gentry overcame a sluggish start byoutscoring Pea Ridge 22-4 in the second quarter, and the Lady Pioneers cruised from there to post their first win in 4A-1 play.

Loren Cripps had 16 points and Kendra Speer added 12 for Gentry (11-3, 1-1), who led 28-12 at half-time and 44-19 through three periods. Jordan Winn had 12 points for Pea Ridge (4-10, 0-3).

Both teams return to conference play Friday, with Gentry hosting Prairie Grove and Pea Ridge hosting Berryville.

Sports, Pages 7 on 01/05/2011