Lady Devils Over Greenwood

By Billy Woods

WM School District

PEARCY --- The transition from junior high to high school basketball has been no big deal for Aryah Hazley.

The ninth-grade West Memphis point guard continued her assault on the older competition here Wednesday in the first round of the Class 6A state tournament by blazing the nets for a game-high 29 points in her team's 52-46 victory over Greenwood.

The Lady Devils (17-14) will face Sheridan on Thursday in a 4 p.m. quarterfinal game.

Less than 24 hours after her junior high career was capped by leading her Wonder Lady Lions to a conference championship Hazley was moved up to varsity high school ball and the transition has been seamless. If anything, it's made her step up her game. Hazley is averaging 19.2 points in four high school games. "I play with a lot of the (varsity) players in AAU, so I'm used to playing with them," said Hazley, who hit 10 of 12 free throws. "It's different at times because the level of play is better, but it's been OK."

Hazley made 4 of 4 free throws in the final 1:30 of the game to seal the outcome. After Greenwood (15-16) battled back from a 14-point fourth-quarter deficit to make it a one-possession game with 40 seconds left, West Memphis senior Nikki Higgs split a pair of charity shots to make it 50-46. Hazley then clinched the contest with a pair of foul shots with 14.1 seconds left.

Head coach Shelia Burns went with a smaller lineup in the second half for more quickness and it paid off in the Lady Devils forcing 15 Greenwood turnovers, including 6 in the fourth quarter. "It was a guard game," Burns said. "Our bigs did a good job in the first half, but we felt like we could run on (Greenwood).. We put our big girls back in there for a brief period in the third quarter, but we got stagnant, so we went back to our smaller group and it paid off."

Fellow ninth-grader Tiara Bradley made her presence felt in the first half, blocking three shots without even leaving the floor. She also scored 4 points. West Memphis led 19-15 at halftime after hitting only 7 of 24 field-goal attempts. But the Lady Devils dominated the boards all day, outrebounding Greenwood 35-23. Hazley contributed 6 rebounds to her effort.

A Hazley three-pointer with 52 seconds to play in the third quarter gave the Lady Devils a 12-point cushion (36-24) heading into the fourth quarter. After back-to-back layups by Hazley and senior guard Paris Perkins, who scored all 12 of her points in the second half, the West Memphis girls held their biggest lead of the day at 40-26 with just over seven minutes left in the game.

But the Lady Devils spread their offense and they stopped attacking with over five minutes left in the game. That allowed the Lady Bulldogs to creep back into the game. Greenwood made 12 of 14 free throws in the fourth quarter to spur its rally. Hazley, however, took over the final four minutes of the game by hitting all 6 of her free-throw attempts. "I missed two (in the first half) and I was thinking I was going to miss (late in the game)," Hazley added. "But I focused on what I was doing and made them."

Senior center Ty Bullins added 4 points for the Lady Devils while Higgs scored 3. Sarah Reeves paced the Greenwood attack with 12 points while Kyiah Julian scored 10.