Bentonville girls display resiliency

BENTONVILLE -- Tom Halbmaier was ready to see whether his Bentonville girls team would bounce back one night after a blowout loss to Fort Smith Northside. Maryam Dauda responded by setting a school single-game scoring record, and the Lady Tigers held off Conway to claim a 76-68 victory Friday night over the Lady Wampus Cats in the Malik Monk Classic. Dauda, Bentonville's 6-4 junior post, finished with 36 points to break the previous record of 34 set by Avery Hughes in a 2017 game against Greenwood. "I was really pleased with our effort," Halbmaier said. "I thought they were really connected defensively, created some mismatch issues and got a lot of deflections in the half court. That led to some easy buckets for us. "But Conway is a very good team. They made runs. We would get them down 10 or 12 points and boom, they go 8-0 real quick. Fortunately, we hit some free throws down the stretch." Bentonville (6-1) entered the fourth quarter with a 56-42 lead, but Conway (7-2) pulled within 64-59 after a bucket by Savannah Scott, a 6-3 freshman post, with just under four minutes remaining. Eight unanswered points were capped by Rebecca Boone's three-pointer with 1:31 remaining to pull Conway within 68-66. The Lady Tigers held off the challenge by going 8 of 8 at the free-throw line over the last 1:21. "I'm so proud of how they battled," Conway Coach Ashley Hutchcraft said. "When you have two freshmen, one sophomore and really one senior that has varsity experience, you can't be more pleased with the effort they brought throughout the game.

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Bentonville High School Athletics

BENTONVILLE GIRLS DISPLAY RESILIENCY

HENRY APPLE

Arkansas Online | 12/23/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Bentonville Athletics