Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:19] Speaker B: Welcome back to another week of the Prep Rally podcast. It's another week of basketball here in northwest Arkansas and the River Valley. I'm your host, Sydney Ruth Mulvanen.
[00:00:28] Speaker A: I'm Graham Thomas and Leland Barclay joins us from the River Valley.
[00:00:33] Speaker B: All right, guys, let's talk about some big takeaways from last week.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Well, Sydney, it's. The big takeaways are, is the, the list of teams keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller and we have arrived to state tournament week in Arkansas and yeah, it's, it's exciting and exhausting.
Well, we're all tired. We had regionals all west last, I think Leland went to two different regionals. And I mean, Leland, you just tell us about it.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: I mean, with some gusto though.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: Can you even hear us, Leland?
[00:01:25] Speaker C: What? Oh, I didn't know that was for me.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Okay. I think he just proved his point that y' all are tired.
[00:01:34] Speaker C: Well, and you know, it's, you know, the, for the smaller schools, the, you know, it's a, it's a grind for them as well, you know, in the, in the 6A and 5A, it's a two month grind and the top four or six finishers go, go on to the state tournament and 4A, 3A and 2A and, and single A.
So I mean it's a, it's a grind for them too. And, and a lot of those games are elimination games and that's what we saw last week,
[00:02:05] Speaker A: just to kind of put it in perspective, I think. So Leland covered a regional on Tuesday. No, I'm sorry, Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
And we're not talking just two games tonight. He was. These were four game nights.
[00:02:19] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:02:20] Speaker A: And now the only, the only good side about it is there's tremendous hospitality room over in Paris we've heard about, and, and in Mountainburg. And so just get to kind of eat the whole time you're covering games?
[00:02:34] Speaker C: Well, I mean, you know, obviously, you know, I've got a routine of covering four games and it's one trip to the hospitality room and then it's cover a game, talk to a coach, couple of players, maybe write a story.
Cover a game right during halftime. Cover a game right during halftime.
And then at the end of the night, of course, you know, we're looking at the clock because that last game is usually slated to tip off at 8:30, but never does.
So it's a 10 o', clock, nine. Of course. I know I was, you know, we have our text thread and I know
[00:03:07] Speaker A: that
[00:03:09] Speaker C: I guess it was herald on Friday night. At Mountainburg, the last game of the night went into overtime, which it was already running, you know, late. So it was after 10 o' clock when that game was over and our deadline is basically 10:30. So it's a, you know, it's kind of a, it's kind of a sprint.
While it's a marathon during the season, it's kind of a sprint sometimes because we keep watching that, watching that clock to get our stuff in and, and then somebody has to proofread it, put it out on the page. And as you guys, I guess the sling or the, the slang is that you sling the photos to go with those. And I'd like to know how many photos Ron took on Friday and Saturday night.
You know, it's, it's probably approaching a thousand.
So it's, look, you know, it's, it's a fun time and it's also, I hope, very rewarding to the readers to see that stuff the next day.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Look, we were so busy, we even brought Rick Fires back out of retirement again to go help us at the Prairie Grove Regional.
[00:04:16] Speaker B: So he was probably like,
[00:04:19] Speaker A: well, that's pretty much what it was. And sure enough, he's the one who had the controversial buzzer beater with Pottsville and Peerage girls that, you know, video shows that the girl didn't get the shot off. I mean it's. So anyway, I say all that to say it's, it's fun, but it is exhausting. And state tournament is also exhausting in a different kind of way though.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, in a fun way.
[00:04:45] Speaker A: Yeah, it is fun. And so when we're talking about state tournament this week, you know, we're looking at the six day games are in Bryant. So our good friends at the Arkansas Democrat Gazette will, will handle that for us. The 5A state tournament is in Farmington. Yeah, just about everybody up here will get a little bit of that one. They're going to run a good show over at Farmington.
[00:05:07] Speaker B: Yeah, they are.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: War A's down at Moralton. I know Leland has at least one field trip planned and then the rest of them, like 3A is in Osceola. I mean, I've been to Osceola. We're not heading to Osceola. But good luck to all who are.
There's a 2A and the 1A and you know, so it's a, it's an exciting day. I love, I love reading the next day's paper. There's a whole page of the girls and a whole page of the boys and just seeing all the different stories from the state tournament is always a real treat.
Mm.
[00:05:42] Speaker B: I just realized something, Leland, you're in your wife's craft room again.
[00:05:46] Speaker C: Yes.
Yeah, I have a. I have a lot of writing to do today. And then opening day for high school baseball.
In fact, it's the opening day for the 6A West.
They jump directly straight into conference play, first game of the season, because it is a 16 game schedule and they have to get started on that right away. And of course, they do take a small break from conference play during spring break because these teams go all over. I think Van Buren is going to Georgia.
There's a huge tournament at Robinson. It's hosted by Pulaski Robinson, but it's played at three or four, maybe even five different sites around Little Rock. So I think south side's going there, Greenwood is going there, maybe Paris. There's several teams going there. So, yeah, we're overlapping.
You know, we're wrapping up wrestling, wrapping up swimming, state tournament, playing basketball, and then the season openers all week in soccer, softball, and baseball.
Wow.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Well, that's another.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Somehow we're going to get to every bit of it. Go ahead, Cindy.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: That's another leeway to say that, if you haven't already seen it. We did a prep rally road trip last year with Harbor Baseball with now Arkansas Razorback Luke Cornelison. So go check that out. It was super fun and we hope we get to cover some more baseball this year and maybe another prep rally road trip with baseball.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: Well, absolutely.
I'm. I'm covering a baseball game this afternoon as well. Probably because I'm the only one that has the hours left. Everybody else is, you know, they're spent for the week or for the what? Our week, our work week is goofy. And you guys, Sydney, you can attest to this. I mean, you know, you get to Monday, it's like, well, what's left?
[00:07:44] Speaker B: So Gig.
Well, we're not gonna touch too much on it, but congrats to everyone who participated in the swim state championship. If you want to see some of the interviews from that from some of the winners, go check it out on our prep rally sports Instagram and Facebook.
We're gonna move on. We want to thank our sponsor for the show. Take control of your pests with West. Whether it's termites, mosquitoes, bed bugs, weeds, or lawn disease, west has the experience serving Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma since 2003. Book your free consultation online today at west termite.com after all, West knows pest best. When we come back, we'll look ahead at this week's upcoming matchups.
Welcome back. We're gonna go ahead and get into some tournament talk, you guys. So Leland Graham, take it away.
[00:08:48] Speaker A: All right, Leland. Well, so there are six classic state tournaments across the state this week, and we're not going to be able to hit and analyze every single one of them today here on Prep rally. But the 6A state tournament, we'll start there. That's, you know, where a lot of our bread is buttered, so to speak.
And on the girls side, you have to think that you're looking at Springdale harbor at a great run through the 6A west with 14 or 616 to no record.
North Little Rock, north side is going to be involved.
The Rock Central just kind of your usual suspects there with the 6A West.
[00:09:31] Speaker C: Definitely Conway's involved included. You know, it's kind of funny during basketball season because we're so wrapped up in the 6A west and the 5A west and the 2 in the States, two largest classifications. We don't keep up with a lot of the other, you know, classifications going on other than, you know, we always know Conway's good. Little Rock Central, you know, had that run a couple of years ago. That was just an amazing run. North Little Rock, you know, is always there with, with coach Fimple Bryant, of course, is certainly worthy. So it's always interesting to see that Central and West matchup. And in the 5A west, we know that Marion has been one of the top ranked teams all season in 6A, but that's overall as a number one team. Van Buren gets the pleasure of playing them in the first round, you know, on Tuesday. So that's, you know, always interesting. And we know how the, the setup is.
It's always the fours versus the ones on the first couple of days and the twos versus the threes. And that's across the board in all the classifications.
So those are really interesting to see. What conferences and regionals get that upset of a four over one. We saw that in the regional at Mountburg last week. Johnson county west side was a four seed and they upset the number one from the three or the two A one conference. So that was big. In fact, we've got videos from Mountainburg and Hackett and including Jesse Mendenhall from Hackett hitting two three pointers in video to extend her school three point record.
And then some, some action, you know, from Mountainburg as well. So, you know, those are always interesting to see. And then the smaller classifications, we always kind of know who's going to be Good. And you know, but from the, the other parts of state, you know, like the, the single A, the one A teams from our area county line and magazine, they went to Lead Hill, which is almost in Missouri for the regionals. Now they're going to travel almost to Louisiana to Lafayette county for their state tournament. So a lot of travel and these teams, you know, this is, this is the last week for most of these players.
[00:11:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:55] Speaker C: A lot of these players to suit up for their high school teams.
[00:12:00] Speaker A: Hey, Leland, you know, you mentioned the ones versus the fours. Well, actually, in the 6A, it's a little bit different because of the buys.
[00:12:07] Speaker C: Oh, that's right. There's buys in 6A.
[00:12:09] Speaker A: Well, one thing I wanted to point out though, if you remember last year, so Springdale girls won the league. Springdale harbor finished second, Northside was third, Fayetteville was fourth or fifth. Fayetteville Bentonville were fourth and fifth. I can't remember the order. There's. But you know, harbor girls and Springdale girls did not play for about a week because they didn't play till the Friday and both of them got beat in the, in the first game in the state tournament. And I, I would say that layoff was a large part of it, you know, so they're gonna have to be ready to go come this week.
[00:12:47] Speaker C: Yeah, you mentioned that. You know, I think the north side Lady Bears the last three years had. Had received buys and lost.
Last year they did not receive a buy. They were the third seed and they played that opening game and won and went on to the state championship game. Went on to the state championship. Fayetteville was the fourth seed. They went to the state championship game. And Ricky Smith last year said that a, that a big or at least a contributing reason why they won the state championship was not having that buy. And the fact that they did not play. They had a buy or an open week in the last week of conference play. So it will be, I think, 10 days from the time that they played their last conference game to their first state tournament game. So, yes, that is a definite, I think in a lot of ways, a disadvantage.
[00:13:46] Speaker A: Yeah, being able to navigate that is going to be a challenge. So when you're thinking about the, the harbor girls, they had such a great year here, but now that, that is a challenge, you know. Yeah, you get the rest and you get to kind of recoup, but then you gotta rev the engine back up a little bit. And I know that's something that Kimberly Jenkins will. Will probably be working on this week on the boys side, you know, from. From northwest Arkansas. What a huge challenge. You know our our two top seeds. The the two co champions of the six day west were the Harbor Boys and Fayetteville Boys. They both went 13 and three in the league. Harbor Boys are going to be the number one seed.
But you're talking some really good 6A west teams or sorry, 6A Central teams like the defending state champion Brian Hornets. Little Rock Central is always good over there.
You've always got Jonesboro in the mix and these different teams. So that is going to be a fantastic tournament down in Bryant.
And then you think about the 5A tournament here. You already mentioned Marion.
Marion's coming over here. A really good west Memphis team is gonna play Alma, which finished number two. We've got Farmington which is really good. Some teams that we're familiar with. And on the girls side, you know, can anybody take down the Farmington Girls on their home court, no less.
So those are sort of the, the main events that we're looking at this week. And then, you know, not to mention the good things that are going to be happening down in the 4A and 3A tournaments. It's just a really exciting, exciting week of basketball. And if you, if you got in your mind that things are going to finish one way, you got another thing coming because these state tournaments almost always have some pretty big upsets.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Absolutely. I mean we almost saw that in the first round of the regional tournament with Subiaco Academy being ranked number one in 3A and they had to go into overtime to beat West Fork, which was the number four seed out of the three A1. So that right there is, you know, we saw an indication of that to begin regional play last week.
[00:16:08] Speaker B: Well, all right.
Be
[00:16:13] Speaker A: she's excited about state tournament too.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah, she looks like it.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: She's like, put me down, sir.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: All right, y'.
[00:16:23] Speaker A: All.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: But before we get into the top five and give me five, we want to remind everyone that NWA online.com and River Valley Democrat gazette.com are the premier spots to get all the latest news on all high school sports. Subscribe to our newsletter to get the top stories every week. Additionally, you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok at prep rally Sports where we share exclusive interviews with players, coaches and we just have a lot of fun. With that being said, take it away, Leland.
[00:16:51] Speaker C: Hello, my name is Shep. I'm from Alma and this is the River Valley. Give me side.
Welcome to the River Valley Democrat Gazette. Gimme five. These are the top five performances of the last week in the River Valley where we start off with before we get to the gimme five, another buzzer beater and we have video proof of Devonte Owens making a dish to Landon Fowler to lead roland to a 7472 overtime win versus Westville in the regional tournament last week on Tuesday and to stay in Oklahoma. Now number five Bodhi Adams won his class four a 175 pound wrestling championship.
Two time state champion Bodie Adams from Salisol with the championship last week. Number four Abigail Simon, the middle of the three Simon sisters from Southside had two top five finishes in the Class 6A state swim meet last week, finishing second in the 100 backstroke and then also fifth in the grueling individual medley.
Number three Ship Newcomb at Van Buren and at Siloam Springs scored 22 points against Van Buren, 33 points against Siloam Springs and ended up guiding Alma to the number two seed in the state tournament and also was the conference's leading score for the season.
Number two, Kyla Piercey from Greenwood became the all time leading score in Greenwood history with 16 points on Friday night at Farmington. She scored 31 at Russellville earlier in the week and Friday night she completed the run past all of them.
Number one our River Valley Democrat Gazette Players of the Week girls Jolie Robinson from county line scored 11 points including four free throws down the stretch the league county line to the regional championship which gave them also the regular season, conference championship, district championship and regional championship to head into the Class A state tournament this week.
And for the boys, Justice Butler and Lee Miller from Subiaco Academy also helped complete the trifecta for the Trojans with a conference championship, district championship and then Friday night a regional championship in a win over Providence Academy, combining for 47 points with Butler scoring 24, Miller 23 in the win over Providence Academy. In the semifinal win over lamar, Butler scored 39 points and had eight rebounds and in that first round overtime win over West Fork, they each scored 18 points and scored all 11 of the overtime points for Subiaco Academy.
So that's the Give me five for the last week of the regular season and for postseason play heading into the state tournament this week.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: My name is Jensen Thrasher. This is Northwest Arkansas top five roll ticks.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: We're going to start number five with Bentonville swim as predicted, swept the class 6A state swim meets on Saturday at the Bentonville Community Center. That is eight consecutive state championships for the Lady Tigers. Four consecutive for the Tigers. So many great performances too many to list here. I would encourage anyone who wants to see go check out the Sunday Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette to read all about the the state swim meet. Josh James did a great job covering for us. Also a shout out to the Providence Academy girls who won the Class 1A through 4A swim tournament as well.
Number four, Jensen Thrasher of Bentonville hit the game winning layup as Bentonville girls beat Springdale Girls 5351 this past week.
Don't sleep on Bentonville. Jensen Thrasher is a good player. She's been hurt all beginning of the year. She's coming on strong here late. Bentonville girls made a nice run last year as well.
Certainly a very capable ball team.
Number three, you know, kind of a rarity, but it's really neat to see. The Farmington boys and Girls both went 14 and oh in the 5 West conference.
It's really hard to do to win a conference championship, much less go 14 and oh while you're doing it in a very tough league.
Congratulations to the Lady Cardinals and the Cardinals.
A little side note there.
Press Taylor, sophomore guard for Farmington boys, scored 21 of his 23 points in the second half to help fuel a comeback against Van Buren and would have been a very tough game up to that point.
Number two, the Springdale harbor girls went 160 in league play.
Now that is a really hard thing to do. I don't Leland, you'll have to correct me here. I don't remember it being done here recently. Maybe I'm wrong about that. But they were really, really good this year and we expect a great run out of them in the state tournament.
Number one, our Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette Player of the Week for boys is Jabari Washington of Springdale harbor. He had 17 points and crossed the 1,000 point mark for his career as harbor beat rival Springdale and earned a share of the 6A West Conference title on Friday night and the number one seed in the conference, number one on the girls side, the Northwest Arkansas Girls Player of the Week is Hadley Carnes and Shiloh Christian. They've had a great year as well. And the boys, you know, while I'm saying that, but Hadley Carnes had 16 points and helped the Lady Saints to a regional title win.
As we've talked about this entire show, those regional championships are no joke. You really, it's, it's a real grind. You got to win three games in four days and Lady Saints and Saints both did that. So congrats to all of our.
Congrats to all of our basketball teams. You know, in northwest Arkansas in the River Valley. It's been a great season.
We're looking forward to state this week. Sydney, it's all you.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Well, that was great, you guys. We hope you enjoyed today's podcast episode. Subscribe and tune in to next week to see if these predictions hold up. And also stay tuned for some content from this week's state tournament run.
