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The Berryville Lady Bobcats are going back to the state tournament, and they’re coming off a victory over Pea Ridge.
That’s a pretty good week.
The Lady Bobcats clinched a return trip to the Class 4A state tournament with a 51-34 victory over Waldron in the first round of the 4A-1 regional tournament on Thursday, Feb. 26, at Prairie Grove. Berryville then shook off a lopsided loss to Shiloh Christian the following night to defeat Pea Ridge 46-41 in the third-place game on Saturday, Feb. 28.
The Lady Bobcats beat Waldron in the regional for the second consecutive season as senior Hailey Howerton made four three-pointers and scored 12 points.
“That’s the game with all the pressure,” Berryville coach Daniel Cornelison said. “We played a lot better in the second half. Hailey hit four threes — three of them in the second half. That changed the whole dynamic of the game.”
After Berryville fell behind by a big margin against Shiloh Christian in the regional semifinals, Cornelison opted to rest his starters.
“We didn’t play well early and we got down a little bit,” Cornelison said. “I just call it coach’s intuition. I just felt like we had no chance really to beat them and I wasn’t going to run my starters into the ground.”
The decision paid off as the Lady Bobcats bounced back to beat Pea Ridge in the third-place game as senior Chaney Fairweather scored 17 points and Howerton added 12.
“We needed that after Friday night,” Cornelison said. “We needed a good bounce-back win. So that was a good one.”
It was Berryville’s first win over Pea Ridge in four meetings this season and sends the Lady Bobcats (24-10) to a firstround state tournament matchup against Forrest City. Tipoff is slated for 4 p.m. Thursday, March 5, at Devil Dog Arena in Morrilton.
The Lady Mustangs (28-3) lost to Highland by one point in the 4A-2 regional.
“They’re very athletic,” Cornelison said. “They’re going to press us. They rebound the ball really well. We’re going to have rebound better than we have been lately. At times they struggle to core. So we’ll see if we can guard them and keep them in front of us and keep them off the boards. If we can do that, I think we can beat them. But if we can’t do those, this is not going to be much fun.”
Berryville will rely on four senior starters — with Tessa Johnson and Paige Thurman joining Fairweather and Howerton, along with freshman post Ellie Asbury.
“Hopefully, they’ll step on the floor understanding what we’ve got to do,” Cornelison said. “We’ve got three days to get prepared for them. That helps. And hopefully we’ll step on the floor locked in and ready to go to work. If they’ll do that, I like our team a lot.”
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