PEA RIDGE — Like I predicted, like most or all of the folks who have seen Clarksville play, top-ranked Pulaski Academy was pounded by the Panthers to the tune of 93-73. The margin of loss by the top-ranked Bruins was more than what our Blackhawks suffered at the hands of the now double state champion Panthers.
The game started close but a 30-point explosion by Clarksville in the second period ended all doubts about who was going to dominate. After getting out to a 20-point lead, the Panthers were said to be content with just holding Pulaski at bay. Their furious offensive attack and stifling defense in the second quarter wilted their opponents, a common result with all the 4A teams they faced this year.
Last year then sophomore Dedrick Lee was the state tournament’s MVP, but didn’t repeat the honor this year as younger brother Freddy Lee was awarded the prize. The final game saw the three Lee brothers (Dedrick, Kendrick and Freddy) score 59 of the team’s 93 points. All the attention shown the Lee boys helped Devin Simms get open for shots and he scored 23. Freddy scored 28, Kendrick 16 and Dedrick 15.
The oldest brother has already been offered a scholarship by Mike Anderson’s Razorbacks and the first-year head coach might well extend the offer to all the Lee boys. Perhaps the best thing about the Panthers, as far as the folks around here are concerned, is that they are headed off for play in 5A next season.
The ’Hawks have lost their last two regional games against the Panthers but will no longer.
The 4A-1 district has long been known as the toughest girls basketball 4A league in the state. It looks like the 3A-1 will have that same status as both teams in the state 3A final were from that conference, a league in which the ’Hawks competed until student population growth pushed them up into the 4A classification.
It was a battle of the “greens” as Greenland whipped Green Forest for the fifth straight time this season. This last game went into overtime as Green Forest couldn’t hang onto a 5-point lead with a minute and a half left.
Already having suffered numerous close losses this year at the hands of the Lady Pirates, perhaps the Lady Tigers let their nerves get to them. It was also Green Forest’s first state title game in basketball whileGreenland won its fourth state championship.
Farmington’s girls were elated that they did not have to face Prairie Grove in the state finals when their next door rival was upset in the earlier rounds of the state tournament.
Still, they had to settle for second place again as Star City thumped the Cardinals by a 56-34 count. At least the runner-up trophy will match their conference, district and regional second place trophies.
Will Arkansas be a ‘moneyball’ team?
For the folks who caught the “Moneyball” movie earlier this year, they learned how a man used a financial formula and baseball statistics to make roster changes and additions to build a championship professional baseball team. He was so successful that now, a lot of pro teams use a variation of his formula to put together better squads.
Some sportswriter, or writers, have put together a moneyball equation for college baseball teams. I am not sure how it works since collegiate baseball players don’t get paid, but it was said that the formula places a premium on pitching and uses returning and first-time players on-base percentages, as well as taking into consideration the advent of the new collegiate baseball bat. The new bat has been deadened to the point where, they think, the metal bats will have the same “ball off the bat” power as a wooden bat, the type bats the pros use.
Well, after running all the NCAA teams through the computer, the programmers came up with a probable NCAA champion.
Their research indicated that the Arkansas Razorbacks are the team most likely to win the 2012 College World Series. Now there’s a prediction I can live with.
For a fact, this year’s Hog squad has the deepest pitching staff of most any team in the country. In the last few games, most of their scoring has come through hitting home runs, so it seems the Razorbacks have genuine power batters in their line-up. The Hogs were even deep enough in their last two games to have played two completely different lineups. Because of the likelihood of heavy rains on Sunday, the final games of the three game series hosting Binghamton University were turned into a doubleheader on Saturday. Both lineups outhit the visitors from upstate New York.
The 14-2 Razorbacks have played 13 of their 16 games at home with most of their early season opponents spending time on the road. Teams from the northern half of the U.S.
often don’t play at home until late March or April because of their decidedly colder climates. Teams like Arkansas get lots of inquiries from those teams who wish to play in warmer weather. The Hogs seek to get the best of those teams and most if not all of them will compete for championships in their respectiveleagues.
The SEC is far and away the best baseball league in the US. The latest poll on Monday had eight of the SEC’s 12 teams nationally ranked. Many polls have Florida ranked as the No.
1 team in the country with many having South Carolina in the No. 2 position.
The Razorbacks are ranked No. 4 in Baseball America, the poll that many believe is the most accurate. As if the SEC wasn’t tough enough already, top 10 team Texas A&M will be moving into the league come next season.
As in football, the Razorbacks have the schedule and the path to move to the No. 1 position if they take care of the games on their schedule. Should they best the Gators and Gamecocks in the series they play with them, they will be set, most likely, to host both the Region and Super-Region Tournaments which led to the College World Series in Omaha.
The NCAA usually taps the Hogs to host competition when they merit it as games in Fayetteville are usually the most attended games in their whole tournament, along with LSU.
It doesn’t hurt that the university has what many claim as the best collegiate facility in the United States.◊◊◊
Editor’s note: John McGee is the art teacher at Pea Ridge elementary schools, coaches elementary track and writes a regular sports column for The Times. He can be contacted through The Times at [email protected].
Sports, Pages 10 on 03/14/2012