A bad start was the last thing Southside coach Charlie Cooper needed Friday night against North Little Rock.

And that’s exactly what happened.

North Little Rock’s Collin Moore scored 24 points and the Charging Wildcats withstood a couple of Southside runs before finishing off the Mavericks, 71-44, at Southside Gym.

The Mavericks (8-9, 0-3) never led. But they sure didn’t quit, either.

North Little Rock (13-4, 2-1) gave them an opportunity to pack it in early after building a 19-2 lead — mostly the result of fast-break layups.

“We haven’t started a lot with full-court trapping and man (defense), but we wanted to get going that way,” NLR coach Johnny Rice said. “They’ve got athletes, too, and they’re going to play. We wanted to go out there and get the first licks in and see how they reacted.”

“There are three things we talked about after the game, and No. 1, we’ve got to be patient on offense,” Cooper said. “When we were patient on offense, we got decent shots tonight. (No. 2), you can’t start off the game not knowing who your man on defense is and getting confused. And (three), you can’t not get back on defense and give them layups.

“You can’t spot North Little Rock 17 points and expect to battle back.”

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Fueled by Moore’s early one-handed flush, the Charging Wildcats built a 17-point lead before Tyrease Solomon’s reverse layup spoiled the momentum. The Mavericks’ Ike Moore, who finished with 18 points, drained a 3-pointer and hit a mid-range jumper with 4:54 left in the half to cap a 12-2 Southside run and pull the Mavs to within 21-14.

That, however, as as close as the Mavericks would get.

Collin Moore hit two treys and scored on the block to extend the Charging Wildcats’ lead to 33-20,. Then, as the first half was winding down, North Little Rock’s Ray Fresh hit a driving layup to give NLR a 15-point halftime lead.

The Charging Wildcats quickly pushed the lead to 19 early in the second half.

“We always talk about the first three minutes of the third quarter, and how important they are, and we did a pretty good job of handling that, too,” Rice said.

Southside senior Dillon Hamilton finished with 13 points and nine rebounds. Taye Gatewood added six points.


NLR 74, Southside 36

GIRLS — North Little Rock got the type of bounce-back from Yomyris Morris coach Daryl Fimple was hoping for. His reserves played pretty good as well.

Morris scored 12 points and De’myla Brown added a team-high 15 points to power North Little Rock (13-3, 2-1) to a 74-36 win over Southside in a game that was never in doubt.

The Lady Charging Wildcats led 35-8 at the half and by as many as 42 points en route to posting their second 7A-Central victory in three games. In addition to her dozen points, the 6-foot-2 Morris also pulled down eight rebounds.

“We wanted to get off to a good start and see what we got out of Yomyris,” Fimple said. “She turned her ankle Monday and didn’t play Tuesday. She looked pretty good, but you could still see she was a little tentative at times, too.”

Fimple, an Alma grad, got 11 points from Yasmin Ott as well.

Southside standout Kelly Carson led all scorers with 16 points. Montana Smith had six, and Moorea Kleck and Erin Graham had five apiece.


