The Benton Lady Panthers carried their play over from a Tuesday night 58-22 rout over the Mills Lady Comets into a Wednesday 54-24 rout of the White Hall Lady Bulldogs at Benton Arena. The Lady Panthers improve to 10-8 overall and 2-1 in the 6A/5A blended conference, and have won 4 of their past 5 games.
“I thought it was one of our better defensive efforts of the year,” Benton Coach Jerry Chumley said. “That team had gone toe-to-toe with us and took us to overtime back in December. We just locked them down at the beginning of the game and kept them down. I thought our effort defensively was really, really good.”
Benton defeated White Hall 50-44 in overtime a month ago in the Benton Classic, but Wednesday’s makeup game was a different story.
“Their big girl, No. 24 (6-foot Bradie Ryburn) had 20 last time we played them,” Chumley said. “She really was the difference in that game and this time she scored nothing at all. We kind of junked her a little bit, played some box-and-1, something we don’t normally do. I think it just kind of threw them off and the girls rebounded really well; took care of all their defensive assignments. We just held them in check.”
Benton sophomore Kati Morrow opened the game with a 3-pointer assisted by sophomore Tamia Halk and sophomore Makenzy Davidson hit a three assisted by junior Italei Gray for an 8-2 Lady Panther lead with 3:26 left in the first quarter, which Benton would lead 11-4.