FARMINGTON -- It could have been easy for Farmington's girls to enjoy an unbeaten record with them to Mountain Home last week.
But when Winnsboro, Texas, wanted a game before participating the next three days in Pea Ridge, Lady Cardinals Coach Brad Johnson couldn't pass up the opportunity to play a quality opponent.
The game wound up costing Farmington its 11-game win streak on Monday, Dec. 27 as Winnsboro took the lead for good midway in the second half and handed the Lady Cardinals a 71-63 loss in Cardinal Arena.
"This is what we needed," Johnson said. "We needed to play a team that did exactly what they did. That's a quality basketball team. We knew their tradition coming in, and that's the game of basketball games you want. If you want to be a good basketball program, these are the matchups that you want."
Faith Acker, a 6-1 junior with offers from a number of NCAA Division I schools, scored inside with just under 6 minutes left in the third quarter to snap a 41-41 deadlock and give Winnsboro (16-4) the lead for good. The Lady Raiders went on to build a 57-50 lead on Reese Lindley's 3-pointer with 2:10 left in the third quarter.
Farmington (11-1) would get within four on four occasions in the fourth quarter, the last time being 64-60 after a Megan Hernandez bucket with 2:43 remaining. Winnsboro, however, picked up a three-pointer by Jayden Cox with 1:07 remaining to seal with the victory.
"We never felt like we could catch back up," Johnson said. "They would come back and hit a big shot, get a big rebound or force a big turnover. One of the things we talked about was to be a championship basketball team, you have to find ways to get the big stop and the big rebound or hit the big shot in a difficult moment.
"They made those plays, and we didn't. It wasn't an effort issue. We played hard, but we have to execute better on both ends."
Carson Dillard finished with 18 points, followed by Jenna Lawrence with 17 and Hernandez with 15 for Farmington, which didn't have much time to think about its loss. The Lady Cardinals head to Mountain Home the next day and played an unbeaten Paragould team.
"It's going to be a great week of challenges for us," Johnson said. "We just played a team that's the favorite to win its district in Texas. Then we play Paragould, an unbeaten Class 5A team out of east Arkansas.
"After that, we're probably going to get Valley Springs or Springdale Har-Ber. Those teams are really, really good. I think this is one of the best Har-Ber teams in the history of the school, and Valley Springs is tradition-rich. So there are no days off, and this is a gut-check week for us."