Rickey Smith knew Daryl Fimple’s North Little Rock Charging Wildcats wouldn’t be easy.

He couldn’t have been more right.

The Lady Bears also had a pretty good equalizer in Sara Bershers.

The 6-foot senior scored 19 points and pulled down 17 rebounds Friday to pace the Lady Bears to a 58-48 6A-Central victory before a packed house at Kaundart-Grizzly Fieldhouse.

Smith wasn’t happy with the effort.

But he’s not giving back the win, either.

“As a coach, I didn’t do a very good job of preparing our kids,” Smith said. “The first play of the game they (North Little Rock) came out and hit us right in the mouth. They came out with a full-court press, like there was three minutes to go in the game, and they went 94-feet for the while 32 minutes.”

North Little Rock (9-8, 3-2) led 12-10 after one quarter, and quickly extended the lead to 19-14 with 4:56 left in the half before the Lady Bears caught fire behind the play of super sophomore Jersey Wolfenbarger.

A 9-0 Northside run helped the Lady Bears build a 26-23 halftime lead.

The Lady Bears (17-0, 5-0) never trailed in the second half.

“We’re happy about being 5-0 in the conference,” Smith said. “But we’ve got to be better at protecting the ball. I don’t know how many turnovers we had (16), but I know it was a lot.”

“We came out and pressed and tried to get into their legs a little bit,” Fimple said. “We knew their kids were rhythm shooters, so we tried to get it up and down the court as much as possible. But I think it took a lot out of us, too.”

Sophomore Tracey Bershers popped a 3-pointer on the Lady Bears’ second possession of the second half, giving Northside its biggest cushion (29-23).

But North Little Rock trimmed the lead to 30-28 before Wolfenbarger went to work, scoring three baskets in the final 1:47 of the third quarter to give Northside a 40-32 lead after three.

“I think that was probably the difference in the game,” Smith said. “Jersey really came on strong at the end of the third quarter.”


Sara Bershers took over in the final quarter, hitting all six of her free throw attempts and finishing strong.

“We just have to be more intense on defense,” she said. “Sometimes we fall asleep on defense. We have to remind ourselves to remain awake.”

The Lady Charging Wildcats didn’t help their cause at the free throw line, misfiring on 11-of-21 free throw attempts.

“It’s who gets fouled that’s been the problem,” Fimple said. “When you have a freshman (Amauri Williams) inside, in a big game like that, it’s a learning process. You’ve got to be able to make those.”

Williams, a 6-4 presence in the paint, finished with seven points on 3-of-10 shooting. Kennedy Tucker led NLR with 10 points, while De’myla Brown finished with nine.

NLR 66, Northside 58

BOYS — Senior Kylon McCollugh scored 13 of his 16 points in the first half and defending 6A state champion North Little Rock took round one with Northside on Friday, 66-58.


The Grizzlies, who never led, trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half before closing to within two in the second half.

But North Little Rock, which beat Northside in last year’s title game, held on in crunch time. Collin Moore hit all seven of his fourth quarter free throws and finished with a team-high 17 points.

Moore, in fact, scored 13 of the Charging Wildcats’ 19 points in the final quarter.

Jaylin Williams led the Grizzlies (11-8, 2-3) with a game-high 22 points.
