PRAIRIE GROVE -- Kevin Froud compared his team to an old car. Gravette girls basketball coach Will Pittman said his team just ran out of gas after a fast start. The result was the top-seeded Lady Tigers pulling away in the second half for a 55-35 victory against the fifth-seeded Lady Lions in the semifinals of the 4A-1 District Tournament on Friday.
Gravette returns to Prairie Grove to open the 4A North Region tourney at 4 p.m. today against the winner of Saturday's 4A-4 title game between Ozark and Pottsville.
Both teams came out firing on all cylinders by hitting a combined 11 three-pointers during the first half. Prairie Grove's first 21 points came via the three-point line, but it led by just a single bucket (25-23) at halftime.
"I think any other team in the state that's playing them is down by 15 (at halftime)," Pittman said. "Because I thought we played very well in the first half and they're still up (two points)."
The Lady Tigers revved up the defensive pressure to force three consecutive turnovers to open the second half. That ignited a 7-0 run that was started by back-to-back buckets by Ashley Cox and capped off by a three-pointer by Taylor Hartin, who led all scorers with 15 points. The stingy defense continued throughout the rest of the third -- Gravette's Tori Foster hit her team's only bucket in the quarter -- as Prairie Grove built a 38-25 lead on its way to the 20-point win.
By winning the 4A-1 regular season title, Prairie Grove received a bye into Friday's semifinals and a full week of rest between games.
"I told the girls, we were kind of like an old car that hadn't been run hard in a while," Froud, the Prairie Grove girls coach said. "And we finally cleaned our exhaust out in the second half and started doing more stuff like we're capable of doing it.
"But give Gravette credit. Will has done a great job. They've gotten better and better each time we've played them."
On the flip side, Gravette was playing its third game in four days. It defeated Lincoln 66-53 on Tuesday and Gentry 53-39 on Wednesday to advance to the district semifinals for the first time in Pittman's five years as head coach.
"We just had a tough start to the third quarter and you can't dig out of a hole like that against a team like Prairie Grove," Pittman said. "They're easily one of the Top 3 teams in the state and will have a chance to win (the state title), but we just ran out of gas and ran into a very hot team tonight."
Girls
Prairie Grove 55, Gravette 35
Gravette^14^9^2^10^--^35
Prairie Grove^12^13^13^17^--^55
Gravette (15-13): Hicks 11, Foster 10, Branscum 8, Chalk 3, McKenzie 2, A. Pinter 1.
Prairie Grove (21-5): T. Hartin 15, Bartholomew 13, M. Hartin 9, Lopez 5, Cox 4, Doss 3, Stone 3, Sapp 2, Vinson 1.
Sports on 02/24/2016