GRAVETTE — Austin Heard could hardly believe his ears when the senior guard was told what he had accomplished Tuesday night.
Heard played the biggest role in keeping Bentonville’s boys undefeated as he scored a career-high 38 points and led the Tigers to a 75-61 non-conference basketball victory over Gravette.
“I had no idea,” Heard said. “My shooting had been struggling coming into the game. I knew one of thesenights I would string it all together.”
Terence Pierce, meanwhile, was just as impressive with his scoring. Gravette’s junior guard matched his Bentonville counterpart point-for-point, then some.
Pierce finished the game with 40 points and broke his career mark. The previous high had been 35 set last year in the 4A-1 District Tournament, when he engaged in a scoring battle with Shiloh Christian’s Darian Harris.
“We knew this game was coming for a while,” Pierce said. “It was one of those games when I wanted toprove I could hang with the big boys.”
Pierce scored 10 points in a 71-second span late in the first quarter and put Gravette (2-4) back into the contest after Bentonville (4-0) jumped out to an early 13-3 lead. His shooting also helped the Lions stay within reach of the Tigers.
“It was a great performance between two good high school guards,” Bentonville coach Jason McMahan said. “What I appreciate about those two players is they also took the challenge of guarding each other.”
Pierce hit consecutive3-pointers to pull Gravette again within 39-34 early in the second quarter, but that was as close as the Lions could get. Bentonville closed the first half with a Heard 3-pointer and two free throws by Nick Smith, then scored seven straight points to start the second half for a 51-34 cushion.
“It seemed like every time we had a chance to get it under 10, we would miss a shot and they would go on a run,” Gravette coach Dustin Peters said. “It would be a four-point swing, a sixpoint swing. We couldn’t ever get over the hump.”
Smith was the only otherplayer in double figures with 14.
BENTONVILLE 75 GRAVETTE 61 Bentonville 19 25 16 15 - 75 Gravette 17 17 12 15 - 61 BENTONVILLE (4-0): Heard 38, Smith 14, Ward 8, Bachman 4, Sanchez 3, Dixon 3, Haggard 3, Estrada 2. GRAVETTE (2-4): Pierce 40, Pollreis 8, Parker 7, Trouther 3, VanOtterloo 2, Nims 1.
GIRLS GRAVETTE 47, MCDONALD CO., MO. 34
The Lady Lions' 13 points in the first quarter provedto be the margin of victory in their 47-34 win over Mc-Donald County.
Kylee Davis had 15 points and Monica White added 10 to pace Gravette (2-4). Preslea Reece led McDonald County (0-3) with 15 points.
GRAVETTE 47, MCDONALD COUNTY, MO. 34 McDonald Co. 8 9 12 5 - 34 Gravette 13 7 7 20 - 47 MCDONALD COUNTY (0-3): Reece 15, Rickman 7, Smith 5, Pierce 4, Garcia 2, Ballard 2, Hodson 1. GRAVETTE (2-4): Davis 15, White 10, Pruitt 7, Wishon 7, Duke 4, Bayley 3, DeWitt 1.
Sports, Pages 9 on 12/12/2012