GRAVETTE -- In the final game of Lion Pride night at Lion Arena Friday night, the Gravette Lions faced off with the Farmington Cardinals in a conference showdown. The Lions held the lead early, but Farmington poured on the coal and steamed past the Lions to take the win by 13.
The first 90 seconds of the first quarter were all defense with neither team able to score until the 6:22 mark when Farmington's Carson Simmons landed the first field goal of the night. On the next play of the quarter, it was Gravette's turn to score a field goal and free throw by Tristan Batie for the Lions' first lead of the night.
The lead went back and forth between Gravette and Farmington until the very last play of the quarter when the Lions nailed a three-pointer at the buzzer, giving the team a 17-14 lead.
Gravette held on to its lead in the second quarter until the three-minute mark when Farmington hit a three-point go-ahead basket. The Cardinals continued to pound the boards, hitting five field goals toward the end of the half to take a 10 point advantage into the break.
The second half belonged to Farmington as the Cardinals continued to expand their lead and, by the final buzzer, took the conference victory, 64-51, over the Gravette Lions.
Four Lions were in double figures for the contest, including Batie with 14, Michael Duke, Cordell Donell and Johnny Dunfee with 10 points each. Two additional Lions contributed to the scoring effort, Jake Carver with six and Dakota Sizemore with one.
For the Farmington Cardinals, Layne Taylor and Carson Simmons together accounted for half of the points for the night with 22 each. Roman Carlson had nine, Caleb Blakely had five, Decory Thomas, Nathan Monroe and James Payne had two points each.
Gravette 41,
Pea Ridge 36
Tristan Batie scored eight of his 10 points in the fourth quarter and led Gravette to a come-from-behind victory over Pea Ridge in a 4A-1 Conference game in Blackhawk Arena.
Pea Ridge (5-12, 2-7) owned a 33-27 lead after David Andrus' basket with 5:12 remaining before Batie headed a 10-1 run that gave Gravette (7-7, 4-3) the lead for good. Cordell Donell's 3-pointer put the Lions ahead 35-34 with 2:52 left to play, then Batie added a bucket to make it a 37-34 game with 1:45 remaining.
Andrus scored again to pull the Blackhawks within one with 1:22 on the clock, but Michael Duke hit four free throws in the final 27.4 seconds to cap Gravette's win.
Johnny Dunfee also had 10 points for Gravette. Jared Brewer and Malik Bagsby each had nine points for Pea Ridge.
