Scores Not Indicative Of 5A West Competition

Johnson: 6 Of 8 Girls Basketball Teams Were State Caliber

MARK HUMPHREY ENTERPRISE-LEADER Farmington senior forward Kristi DuChanois has a variety of ways to get to the basket as she does here in conference action. The Farmington girls won the 5A-West Conference title with a 12-2 record in the league.
MARK HUMPHREY ENTERPRISE-LEADER Farmington senior forward Kristi DuChanois has a variety of ways to get to the basket as she does here in conference action. The Farmington girls won the 5A-West Conference title with a 12-2 record in the league.

FARMINGTON -- Farmington girls basketball coach Brad Johnson is grateful for five seasons of tough play among the 4A-1, which he says prepared the Lady Cardinals to step up in classification.

Johnson now has six years under his belt as Farmington head coach and looks back at classic battles with U.S. 62 rival Prairie Grove and other 4A-1 teams as paving the way for Farmington's success in winning the 2014-2015 5A West Conference championship.

"You have a lot of good caliber players and good caliber coaches in the 5A West. Clarksville [No. 7 5A West] was no slouch. You have six state caliber playoff teams [including Little Rock Christian and Morrilton which didn't qualify for state] all in the same league."

Little Rock Christian may have felt like they were stepping into cruel shoes, unable to avoid fouls when they dropped a key Jan. 23 5A West game at Farmington, 62-52. Four of the Lady Warriors five starters fouled out and Alexus Thomas played the final 17 seconds with four fouls as they had a lot of trouble trying to contain Farmington's Tahlon Hopkins, who scored a game-high 25 points nor could they adequately defend Farmington's full-court running game. Part of their foul problems resulted from poor decisions when they had the ball.

Little Rock Christian's Annalee Rhodes scored 4-straight points in 17 seconds, including a pair of free-throws after making a steal caused by a trap to cut Farmington's lead to 50-45 with four minutes and 16 seconds remaining. Then, in a sequence of 44 seconds during the latter half of the fourth quarter, Rhodes went from relative security of competing with two personals to sitting on the pine after having fouled out. Her troubles began when Farmington reversed the ball to beat a Warrior trap, then quickly dumped the rock inside to Tahlon Hopkins on the low block where Rhodes fouled her going up with 3:56 left in the contest.

Ten seconds later Kristi DuChanois swiped an errant Warrior in-bounds pass and saw Tahlon Hopkins ahead of the pack and got her the ball for an easy transition bucket and a 53-45 Farmington cushion. At the other end, Rhodes got off a shot that wouldn't fall only to have the rebound carom off Farmington on the baseline. Little Rock Christian in-bounded underneath their own goal and Rhodes again went to the basket stopping only when Farmington senior Maria McPherson momentarily tied up the ball before falling backwards.

When a whistle sounded there were three possible calls, including an alternating-possession held-ball. Rhodes was so certain she had been fouled that she stepped to the free-throw line. The ruling was charging and she suddenly found herself playing defense with four fouls lasting only 10 more seconds. Farmington had successfully moved the ball upcourt by passing ahead to their front-line players throughout the contest and wasted no time in finding DuChanois' set up near the free-throw line. The 5-foot-9 senior forward lost her footing and Rhodes was charged with her fifth foul with 3:12 showing. DuChanois made 1 of 2, extending Farmington's lead to 54-45.

Farmington's lone field goal down the stretch was Kaylee Brown's putback but over the final 2:04 the Lady Cardinals made 6 of 11 free-throws, including a second-chance charity shot on a lane violation to keep Little Rock Christian at bay. Farmington prevailed, 62-52, to drop the Warriors to 2-3 in league play. In February, Farmington traveled to Little Rock to take on the Warriors on their home court and basketball observers wondered if the Warriors could stay out of foul trouble, they could potentially take the rematch down to the wire. While Johnson isn't taking anything away from Little Rock Christian, noting their nonconference victories over several state tournament teams, he pointed to a 57-50 Feb. 13 loss at Harrison which Little Rock Christian suffered the week before which eliminated them from playoff contention, played into Farmington's hands.

"They are a really good team. They have a good post-presence and they could shoot it," Johnson said. "It was one of those games where we got separation early. We got off to a good start. By that time of the year we had started playing very well especially on the road."

After playing to a 14-14 draw at the end of the first quarter, Farmington surged to a 36-24 halftime lead with a dominant second period and went on to win 62-44 on Feb. 20 posturing themselves to capture the 5A West crown by beating Morrilton (49-38) and Vilonia (46-28) in the final week of the regular season.

"Little Rock Christian's problem is they got put in the 5A West. You take them and Morrilton and put them in another league and they're in the state playoffs," Johnson said, adding, "The league [4A-1] we came out of was great and really prepared us for the 5A West."

Sports on 07/22/2015