White Hall girls fall in OT to Benton

Tuesday night’s low-scoring girls basketball battle needed an extra period to decide a winner, and the visitors came out on top.

White Hall fell 53-48 in overtime at home to Benton.

Lady Bulldogs coach Dustin Powell said this wasn’t White Hall’s best performance.

“I think we made a lot of bad decisions,” Powell said. “I think we let them turn us over when they weren’t even putting pressure on us, just making bad decisions passing the ball. We let them get to the rim, get into the paint pretty much at will.”

White Hall (11-4, 1-2 in 5A-South) led 45-43 with less than a minute to go in regulation after a 3-pointer and a free throw from Kynnedi Barnett. Her go-ahead 3 was the fourth lead change of the fourth quarter.

The game went into overtime after Benton (7-5, 3-0) tied the game at 45 in the final minute on a layup by Alexis Duck.

Emma Welch hit the first shot of overtime to give the Lady Panthers the lead for good. White Hall could only muster a free throw until a layup in the final moments as Benton won the overtime period 8-3.

The Lady Bulldogs’ loss came despite a 21-point effort from Barnett and 16 points from Kenedi Bowman.

For Benton, Duck led all scorers with 27 points, all in regulation. McCartney Asher followed with 12, including 4 in overtime.

The game was tight throughout, with the largest gap being White Hall’s 17-11 lead late in the first quarter. Benton quickly tied the game early in the second quarter and went on to lead 25-21 at halftime, but Barnett and Bowman combined to put White Hall ahead 29-27 midway through the third. The Lady Bulldogs took a 33-32 edge into the fourth quarter.

BOYS: Benton 77, White Hall 38

The Benton boys overpowered White Hall from the opening tip Tuesday to hand the Bulldogs their first conference loss, 77-38.

Benton (13-3, 3-0) opened the game on a 16-3 run, forcing two Bulldog timeouts.

White Hall (9-7, 2-1) trimmed the deficit to 20-11 late in the first quarter after a pair of shots from freshman Brian Cal Jr., but the Panthers led 23-11 after the first.

The Bulldogs got it down to 25-15 in the second quarter on a jump shot from junior AJ McCray, but Benton freshman Anthony Spratt Jr. scored the next 8 points by himself with two 3-pointers and a dunk. The Panthers finished the half on a 10-0 run which included three dunks by senior Terrion Burgess.

Benton led 64-26 entering the fourth quarter, which was played with a running clock as both teams put their reserves into the game.

Burgess led all scorers with 18 points, while Spratt scored 14. UAPB signee Harrison Pickett finished with 13.

Cal led White Hall with 9 points.