NHS LADY BEARS GET WELL-DESERVED BREAK

Ordinarily, as a creature of habit, Northside girls coach Rickey Smith would prefer not to have his team’s routine disrupted by having a bye Tuesday. In this case, though, Smith will make an exception. He said that the Lady Bears being off on Tuesday couldn’t have come at a more opportune time. After Northside’s 67-34 win against Southside on Friday, Smith gave his players the weekend off. “I’m not sure if they’ve had a weekend off probably since Thanksgiving, so we’ll give them a couple of days off, come back in Monday and get ready to go to work,” Smith said. Another reason Smith welcomed the off night Tuesday was the Lady Bears’ first-half schedule in 6A-Central play, as they got to play in their home gym just twice. “The whole month of January, we didn’t get in until midnight on Tuesday nights; every Tuesday night, we were on the road and that carried over into Wednesday,” Smith said. “Our kids got tired at practice, were dragging on Thursday and hopefully got to be back on Friday. “Not only did that affect our practice schedule and practice plans, it affected everything we were trying to do to keep improving.” The schedule gets easier for the Lady Bears starting this Friday when they are at home against Bryant. Northside will close out the regular season playing five of its seven conference games inside the Fort Smith city limits. At the same time, despite the Lady Bears’ 19-0 start and No. 1 ranking in 6A, Smith is using the brief rest period as a chance to stress even more improvement by his players. “We know we have to get better,” Smith said. “Our kids understand that, but we’re proud of where we’re at, but by no stretch of the imagination (are we satisfied). “It’s like halftime of a basketball game right now, so we’ve still got the second half and nobody wins anything in the first half, so we’ve got to go to work and I think our kids understand that. Grizzlies Northside entered last week in desperation mode. The Grizzlies made it through that week, not to mention ending the first half of 6A-Central play, in a much better frame of mind. After Northside won at Cabot on Jan. 22, the Grizzlies led from start to finish in a 65-30 win against Southside Friday at the Stubblefield Center. That put Northside (13-8, 4-3) right back into the mix among the contenders for the conference title. The Grizzlies currently stand in a tie for fourth place with Little Rock Central, two games behind 6A-Central leader Bryant, which comes to Kaundart-Grizzly Fieldhouse on Friday, followed by Central visiting on Feb. 5. “I just talked to (the players) about being 4-3 (in conference play),” Northside coach Eric Burnett said. “It’s bad but it’s really not bad, and the reason why I say that is we’re 4-3 and four of those games were on the road and we won three of them. “So we are sitting here in Fort Smith for the second half of conference and we really have to leave Fort Smith twice. Everything else is right here, five out of the seven (remaining 6A-Central games), so we’ve just got to take care of our home and that might put us in the driver’s seat to finish out the conference.” Oddly enough, though, in Northside’s two games at Kaundart-Grizzly Fieldhouse in the first half of conference play, the Grizzlies dropped both, against Little Rock Catholic and North Little Rock. So starting Friday with Bryant, the Grizzlies have a chance to reverse those recent home-court woes. “We’ve been right there, every game, so we’ve just got to continue playing defense because that’s the key,” Burnett said. “I think we’re steadily getting better, so hopefully in two or three weeks, we’ll figure it all out and put it all together, hitting on all cylinders and be able to roll into the state tournament.” Football Commitments With National Signing Day on the horizon, several former Fort Smith football standouts got closer to making a final decision on their choice of college. Northside quarterback Derrick “Deuce” Wise and Southside linebacker Darin Davenport both announced on their respective Twitter pages over the weekend that they have verbally committed to play at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway. Another player, Northside cornerback Elijah Tabut, announced on his Twitter page this weekend that he has committed to play at Arkansas Tech University in Russellville. National Signing Day is Wednesday, Feb. 6.

NHS LADY BEARS GET WELL-DESERVED BREAK

BUCK RINGGOLD

Times Record | 1/29/2019

PHOTO CREDIT: Fort Smith Northside High School Athletics