[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome back to the Prep Rally Podcast. It's another week of basketball here in northwest Arkansas on the River Valley. I'm your host, Sydney Ruth. Will Bannon.
[00:00:26] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Graham Thomas. Leland Barclay joins us in the River Valley.
And we're really excited, Sydney, because it's starting to melt. The temperatures are rising, the roads are getting better, and we kind of had some basketball finally to report on this past week.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Yeah. So let's talk about it.
[00:00:43] Speaker A: Okay. Well, so, I mean, everybody knows about Fern, the winter storm. Fern. I just now knew the name was. Her name was Fern.
[00:00:51] Speaker B: They named stuff.
I know they named, like, hurricanes, but.
[00:00:55] Speaker A: This is news to me because people, people.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: You name snowstorms now.
[00:00:59] Speaker A: People first. I first saw the reference in the church newsletter, right. I was like, fern, what is it, like a weather term? It's the name of the winter storm.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: They name winter storms. Okay.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: So, you know, we got the snow up here, they got the snow and ice down where Leland is. And it was really just. It's been problematic all last week. On Thursday of last week, we finally had some ball games being played.
A little more on Friday. And finally down on Saturday, we had some in the River Valley. And, man, it just really is difficult. You know, people don't realize how difficult it was down there. Leland, with the snow and ice, you guys just never melted.
[00:01:41] Speaker C: No. In fact, we had. I don't know of a single school in this area that went to school at all last week. Even Friday, everybody canceled because of the snow creek that we got. In fact, I think there was even still another school that's out today. Several schools modified even their bus routes today. So. And that's what dictates, really, school closings, you know, bus routes and. And can the buses get around. But, yes, we do. See, we've seen some sunshine and we see some pavement, and we're ready to go.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: So, I mean, we're. We're ready, too. And, you know, like I said, Thursday, we had a couple of games happen. So we had Bentonville west sweeping Rogers Heritage, Springdale sweeping Bentonville at Bentonville. What a huge day for the Springdale Bulldogs.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Okay, now, but I think I. Listen, I think people forget where Springdale was about this time of year ago. They had some pretty good play, and, you know, they had some good underclassmen on their bench coming up. So, you know, it was about time that they figured it out. But, I mean, this. This is still a good team as they were last year.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Well, it just goes to show you, in this league, I mean, even the, the teams, you know, at the bottom of the league can, can come up and get one of the better teams in the league.
[00:03:01] Speaker B: But I get it now. There's, now they're sort of an underdog. I get some of their upperclassmen left, but, you know, they still had players on the bench learning and growing. And like I said, it's about time they figured something out. And they did against Bentonville.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: So we moved from, from Thursday's games to Friday. And harbor gets the sweep of rival Springdale. The girls game ended up being a real blowout. It. We thought it'd be a close game.
Harbor girls are really good.
[00:03:24] Speaker B: Yeah, they are.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Boys game was really close, just like we thought it would be in a rivalry game. Fayetteville takes care of both the Bentonville teams. Tough week for the Bentonville High Tigers.
I got to go see Shiloh Christian play.
They played Prairie Grove. And let me tell you, both of those Saints teams are on a roll.
And then we get into Saturday, the game we've been. We talked about this game on the last podcast. It was supposed to happen maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. It happened on Saturday.
Springdale harbor goes down Fort Smith Northside in a really key girls game and wins 66 to 61 to take control in the 6A West Conference. That was a, a big win for the Lady Cats, but it's just round one. Guys were the first.
[00:04:12] Speaker B: I, you know, personally, I think it's going to be a rotation of three teams, and the three teams I'm, I think are going to be the most, you know, competitive kind of weaning each other out. But I mean, we saw a close game like this with Northside and Fayetteville north side 1, and then harbor north side kind of similar vibes. And now you, you know, I think for Fayetteville, they're just wanting that rematch against harbor, but I think that's our Core 3 right there.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: It appears to be the way we got. You can't forget about Bentonville west either.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: That's true.
[00:04:45] Speaker C: They're. They're having a good season as well. In fact, their first sweep ever over Bentonville last week. But I talked to Coach Jenkins before the north side harbor game on, on Saturday afternoon, and I'm not sure that either coach is looking forward to this, but I told her, I said, I'm hoping that this is the first of three matchups between those two teams.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: What was her reaction to that?
[00:05:10] Speaker C: It was not positive.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: Can you, can you give us a quote?
[00:05:16] Speaker C: No, she didn't say anything. It was just her Facial expression. I don't think she maybe had thought about that and I don't think maybe she was looking forward to three more.
You know, Northside, actually Harbor jumped out, hit a couple of threes early and it looked like, wow, you know, Harbor's. Well, they came to play and then Northside ends up scoring 23 points in the first quarter.
They go on a nice roll. They lead at halftime.
I mean, and then harbor, and then Harbor, a typical really good team on the road, chipped away in the second half, especially the fourth quarter. And then 166, 61 in a. You know, historically, I know Northside arena is not very old, but you know, it's. It's hard for teams to come to Fort Smith and win.
And I think harbor took a big step forward with back to back wins and consecutive days and then they turn around on Monday.
So, you know, there's some of the teams in the conference that's playing three games or three games in four days.
[00:06:19] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: Sidney, one of my favorite things about the story that Walter Woody wrote from the ball game on Saturday is I guess he was waiting to interview coach Jenkins after the ball game. He heard this big roar come out of the harbor locker room. And then Coach Jenkins comes out and he says, hey, was that roar about, you know, just winning the ball game, all that? And she goes, no, she said that was because I gave them Sunday off.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: And see, that's the, that's the type of stuff. This is why we go to the games and why we cover the games and why we talk to the players and talk to the coaches instead of just watching a live stream and giving a few updates about something is because it's that in depth stuff, the behind the scenes stuff that really makes high school sports what it is.
[00:07:07] Speaker B: I mean, I can remember similar things to when I was an athlete. I remember my team for cheer had won the national championship and we got like a whole week off from practice and it was like the best feeling ever. So I understand you, you, you win something important and then, you know, coaches give you that break from practice because I mean, hey, if there's anything high pressured, it's practices.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: Well, and practices and they're going to play three times this week. And you know, another game on Saturday, Fayetteville went down the mountain and swept Fort Smith. Southside.
Just a quick note here, one of the Fayetteville young man, Henry Sims had a really, just tough injury and we really hope he's okay. Thoughts and prayers for him. And the game ended early because of that Injury in the third quarter.
We never want to see anyone get hurt or anything like that. So certainly hearts go out to Henry. He's a great kid from what coach Brad Stamp says. So it was kind of a whirlwind though. But Thursday through Saturday, it's not our typical. We like routine, you know, Tuesday, Friday, and you know, and then.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: I think you like routine.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Well, you know, as I get older, Sidney, it's just, you know, one of.
[00:08:22] Speaker C: The things we like, our routines.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: See, this is a side note. Crazy, but he always says he's not old, but like, you know, he just said it today.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: You're like, we get older.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Older.
[00:08:34] Speaker A: That's pretty good. Guess it's right on target, actually, so.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: Well, it's more on target than what I used to say. I think I used to say like 60 or something.
[00:08:42] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness.
Leland's not even 60.
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Yeah, he is. He's 65 or 66.
[00:08:49] Speaker C: Yeah. I'm on Social Security, so I guess maybe that quality. And a member of aarp, so maybe that qualifies me as officially old.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Yeah. And Leland's in the Senior Olympics.
[00:08:59] Speaker C: Yeah. Also do the Senior Olympics, so.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: You know, another reason why I love high school sports, you know, it keeps me young.
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Well, you know what also keeps us young is this jingle we got coming up. Okay. Our West Termite jingle. You guys ready?
[00:09:18] Speaker A: I'm always ready.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: All right, take control of your pests with Wes. Whether it's termites, mosquitoes, bed bugs, weeds, or lawn disease, Wes has the experience serving Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma since 2003. Book your free consultation online
[email protected] Ready, gentlemen? And our choir starts in three. Three, two, one.
[00:09:39] Speaker A: After all.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: You guys, I think that was our best time yet. That was so good.
Well, when we come back, we'll look ahead at some of the matchups this week.
Welcome back to Prep Rally. Let's get into some games this week.
[00:10:12] Speaker A: All right. I'm already tired just looking at this schedule. It was going to be a busy week anyway, but. So for the 6A West Conference, it is a three game week starting Monday. They're going to play on Wednesday. They're going to play on Friday.
It is a. It's not your typical Tuesday, Friday schedule.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: Well, then maybe harbor did need that Sunday off.
[00:10:31] Speaker A: Oh, they did? Yeah.
So today's Monday. The Monday games are long gone as we get this. This podcast out.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: I'm just looking at this list. I'm tired from looking at this list.
[00:10:43] Speaker A: Really.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: So many games to play the.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: You know, the, the Monday games are Fayetteville at Heritage, Rogers at Harbor, north side at Springdale. That'll be a good one. Southside at Bentonville. So that's, I mean, you know, it's Monday.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Tuesday, big games in the 5A West. Some of those teams haven't gotten to play a whole lot in the last week or so. But a key one we're looking at is Van Buren at Greenwood, Gravett at Peerage. That's in the 4A one. And then another 4A game down the River Valley that Leland's really got his eyes on. Or Dardanelle at Ozark.
Then we come back Wednesday with more 6A West. Springdale at Southside, harbor at West, Heritage at Bentonville, north side at Rogers.
And we're going to get back at it Friday, too, with. How about this one? Bentonville west girls going to get a huge challenge going down the north side. Rogers at Springdale, harbor at Fayetteville. That is going to be a good one. Harbor in Fayetteville.
You know, south side at Heritage, Siloam Springs is going down to Van Buren. And you guys are going to be at Alma here. So, I mean, better just rest up now.
[00:11:58] Speaker B: Wow.
Sorry. Well, you said Harbor, Fayetteville, and I got locked in.
[00:12:04] Speaker A: I'm telling you, y' all might have to split up camp and send somebody here and somebody there.
Not to mention, this is just the basketball. Sydney, we've got wrestling regionals on Saturday.
On Tuesday, we have, I believe, the 6A West Conference box bowling tournament.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Bowling.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Bowling, yeah.
[00:12:25] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: And the smaller classifications have stuff going on, too. So there's a lot of events and not enough people to do them.
Kind of sounds like a Friday problem.
[00:12:39] Speaker C: Wednesday's national signing day. A lot of signings going on this week as well for those athletes.
And like you mentioned that the, the smaller classifications. I know Mansfield Tigers play Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. This week, there's a lot of teams that have put last week's game onto Wednesday. Some are playing on Saturday. So it's a. It is probably the busiest week of the entire school year is this coming week.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: Leland, I would like you to kind of talk about. Because we, we wrote about this in the newspaper, both the Northwest Arkansas and the River Valley last week. But we've. Especially with the smaller schools, we've got the schedule crunch going on now because they go through a district regional and then state tournament, and we're just running out of time.
[00:13:27] Speaker C: Yeah, the district tournament said so much. You know, it's so different in the 4A 3, 8 on down they play a district tournament, and of course, those seeds are decided on the conference season and how they finish. The top two teams in each conference, they do get a buy into the semifinals of the district tournaments, which means they also get an automatic berth into the regional tournaments. But districts and then regionals and then all of the state tournaments begin after that. But it is a very busy time, and that's why there's such a crunch for the small schools to get games in this week and next week, because then the district tournaments start that next Monday at the various locations around the. Around the conference, because that rotates among the conference teams as well. So that's why there's such a crunch there.
The 5A and 6A, they have a couple of more weeks to kind of squeeze games in.
So there's not as much of a sense of urgency in 5A and 6A as there is in the 4A, 3A and Single A.
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Hey, Sydney, you ready for my hot take of the week?
[00:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah, sure, go ahead.
[00:14:43] Speaker A: Fayetteville girls are going to beat harbor on Friday and throw chaos into that 6A West Girls Division.
Well, and think about this.
Saniya Coachman plays for harbor now. She was at Fayetteville the last two years. Yeah, Fayetteville is going to be more than jacked up to see her come back, and she'll be pretty excited herself. It's going to be a whale of a game. I got Fayetteville beating Harbor, and we're going to have this wonderful chaos of teams at the top of that conference.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: I mean, do you want me to share?
[00:15:14] Speaker C: Fayetteville student section will, you know, have a few jabs to throw on Friday night?
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. We got to experience the Fayetteville student section. I will say they are the funniest. This is not me trying to be biased here, but they are the funniest student section. Like, to give you all an insight, and this is on a prep rally road trip. I don't know the full part of it, but there were. There were some students saying some things, and, you know, some of the teachers were like, okay, y' all are out of here. So some of them got kicked out. And then for the rest of the game, like, the administrators were kind of like, looking over at them and they'd be like, yay, basketball. Yay basketball. Or like, someone would make a good move, and instead of being like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, like, in their face, they'd be like, wow, wow, great shot.
Because they had a teacher on both ends just, like, making sure they didn't say anything.
[00:16:06] Speaker A: Another angle there is harbor ran Fayetteville off the floor the first time they played at Springdale.
Watch out for that boys game too. Now Fayetteville boys are undefeated in the league and Harbor, Harbor's one of the teams I think that can really and.
[00:16:24] Speaker B: Because it's at Fayetteville, another thing we did, we went to harbor as well. Their student section is also kind of wild, so it's going to be an interesting night, not only on the court, but off the court too. I think those student sections are really going to get at each other. I think they both have a really good fan base from what we've seen going to the game, so I think it'll be entertaining all around.
[00:16:46] Speaker A: Oh yeah, it's going to be fun.
So I mean we've got an exciting week and we're looking forward to it.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Well before we get into the top five and gimme five, we want to remind everyone that nwaonline.com and rivervalleydemocrat gazette.com are the premier spots to get all the latest news on all high school sports. Subscribe to our newsletter and get the top stories every single week. Additionally, you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok prep rally sports where we share some fun interviews with the players and also our prep rally road trips. So with that being said, let's get into the Gimme five.
Hi, my name is Sadie Espinoza from Waldron and this is the River Valley Gimme five.
[00:17:28] Speaker C: Go Dogs.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: Go Dogs.
[00:17:30] Speaker C: These are the top five performances of the last week in the River Valley where we love to celebrate game winning buzzer beaters. The number five Kenley Henry of Waldron last week scored 27 points and grabbed six rebounds and was 4 for 4 from the free throw line in a loss against Pottsville. And the Walter girls are in great shape in the 4A4. A lot of games left to play but McKenna Williams had a 31 point game earlier in the season. Sadie Espinosis just announced that she was going to be signing to play college basketball.
So a really good race at the top of that 4A4 conference. In the girls race number four, we have our fourth straight week of a game winning buzzer beater Tegan Collins of Muldrow and we've got another video to prove it. Took an inbounds pass race, sprinted down the court and scored a layup at the buzzer to beat rival Roland 5554 on Saturday afternoon.
And also he just announced also that he'll be signing to Clay Football an Emporia State.
And right now the the photo that is up is not upside down. The photo you see of T. Collins is not upside down. Last year at media day he did a backflip and we were able to get that. And he's just a tremendous athlete. And another game game winning buzzer beater for the fourth week in a row in the River Valley.
Number three, Josh honey. Now you may remember him as the record breaking quarterback for Paris. Is just a junior. Set season records for passing yardage and touchdowns. He's a pretty good basketball player. To 22 points in a win over Cedarville on Friday night including 16 points in the first quarter.
It also allowed the Paris Eagles to notch their 20th win of the season. Their first 21 season in eight seasons.
And it could be three teams at the top of that three a four that have 20 wins this season. Also with Lamar and Subiaco Academy. That's close.
Number two, Cameron Schmidt on Saturday afternoon scored 22 points in that 6661 loss to Springdale Harbor.
Number one, our number one, our top river Valley Democrat is at Players of the week. The girls. Kyla Percy on Saturday afternoon scored 42 points in a 80 to 76 loss at Silo Springs. That's her third 40 point game of the season. She now owns games of 45 points, 44 points and 42 points on the season. She's already passed three players this season on this on these career scoring chart at Greenwood and close to another one and the boys. Antoine Thomas, a transfer from Northside went to Pacola this year and on Saturday afternoon he earned the MVP honors at the Leflore County Tournament and helping pacola win their fifth straight county championship. Scored nine of his 16 points in the fourth quarter.
Pecola had four players in double figures on Saturday in the championship game. They also had four players in double digits in the semifinals. That was a close win over Podo.
Five straight county championships for the Pecola Indians.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: Hi, my name is Lauren McCready. I'm from Shiloh Christian School and this is the NWA top five.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: All right, we'll start off the top five this week with a couple of recognition for some wrestling teams in the Class 6A conference. The Rogers Lady Mounties and the Bentonville Tigers were victorious in the Class 6A dual state wrestling tournament. Dual state is not a sanctioned sport by the Arkansas Activities association or not a sanctioned event by the Arkansas Activities Association. State wrestling tournament still to come, but big important event for these teams to compete in.
It was kind of a shortened event this year because the teams from the Central were not able to come and compete because of the weather down in Central Arkansas.
Number four Leland mentioned the big night Kyla Piercey had for Greenwood with Siloam Springs, but it was Asylum Springs girls who survived that and defeated Greenwood for the first time since the 201516 season.
Kenley Moore had 17 points and off the bench Siloam had journey Dottie with 17, Landry Ladner with 12 and Hope Non with 10.
That was a pretty big win for Silo Springs. Kind of gets them back into the conference race and everybody is chasing trying to chase down Farmington over there in the 5A West.
Number three, Kenyon Johnson of Fayetteville had 23 points in an injury shortened game at Fort Smith Southside on Saturday.
We talked about, you know, the reason why and certainly once again our thoughts go out to Henry Sims and hope to see him back on the court soon.
Number two, Lauren McCready of Shiloh Christian scored 23 points in a win against Prairie Grove on Friday night.
She went into that game with 987 points, so she has topped the 1000 point mark.
And then Shiloh Christian goes and wins by 29 at Berryville on Saturday. The Lady Saints have won 18 straight four A1 conference games dating back to last season. They're 10 and O in the league in complete control right now. And then the boys, by the way have won 25 consecutive conference games and that dates back to the 2324 season.
Our Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Players of the Week we have Sky Davenport of Rogers heritage. He had 23 points and Rogers Heritage beat the rival Rogers Bounty 61 to 49 on Friday night and a huge win for the War Eagles. Sky Davenport is capable of putting 23 on just about anybody and is one of the better players to watch in this area.
And number one, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Girls Player of the Week is Madison Campbell of Springdale Harbor. She had 24 points and 11 rebounds on the road in that 66 to 61 win at Fort Smith Northside.
You know the Campbell Twins are a real handful. You can't just concentrate on McKinley because Madison will turn around and get a huge double double like that. The Lady Cats are 18 and 48 no in the league and have a big week coming up this week.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Well, we hope that you enjoyed today's podcast episode. Subscribe and tune into next week to see how these predictions held up, especially the Harbor Faithful one. This is Prep Rally.
