Chicks continue rocky start to league play

2016 has been an unkind year to the Blytheville Chickasaws to this point.

With losses in their first two 5A-East games of the season, the Chicks hoped to turn things around in the winning direction Friday night against another 0-2 opponent, Batesville.

They'll have to wait until next Tuesday to try to turn it around as the Pioneers came into Chickasaw Gym and beat the Chicks, 67-61.

Chickasaw head coach Bill Tyer summed the game up with one word; "Disappointing."

Batesville (1-2 5A-East) attacked the Chicks with a potent inside-outside game. The Pioneers connected on six three-pointers, four coming from guard Taylor Ford, and center Cory Goodwin had his way with Chickasaw defenders, scoring 20 points with 18 coming in the paint.

"Batesville played great tonight," said Tyer. "They just did everything better than us. We knew they could hit shots. They made 11 three's against Paragould. And their big man (Goodwin) played great down low against our defense."

Like Tuesday's game against Paragould, the visitors owned a sizable advantage at the foul line, especially in the second half. Batesville visited the line 14 times in the second half while the Chicks managed to only get to the line twice in the final two periods and eight times for the entire game.

While the story for the Batesville offense was how many shots they got to go in, the exact opposite was true for the Chicks. It was how many points they left on the floor during the night.

Blytheville missed 17 shots in the paint, went 2 for 13 from three-point land and made only three of their eight free throw attempts. Senior guard and three- point shooting threat, Robert Moss, was sidelined with an ankle injury Friday night but that was probably not the only reason for the Chickasaws shooting woes.

"Our best shooter was out but I don't know if that's why the rest of us couldn't shoot," said Tyer. "We're not a good shooting team. We left a ton of points under the basket. You have to make them and we didn't. It's just one of those things. We had chance to get out to a lead early but we had too many turnovers in the first half."

Trailing, 18-17, at the end of the first period, the Chicks opened the second period with an 8-2 run and took a 25-20 lead before Ford began to heat up and hit a pair of three-pointers to give the Pioneers the lead back.

Batesville took a 31-29 lead into halftime and the two teams played neck and neck for most of the third period.

Batesville led, 39-37, with just over three minutes to play in the third and ended the period on an 11-4 run and took a 50-41 lead into the fourth.

The Pioneers kept the lead around nine points for the better part of six minutes in the fourth before the Chicks defense forced a few turnovers. Patrick Beasley's layup off of steal with 1:40 to play brought the Chicks to within a point at 60-59. Mahlik Lewis collected a steal out of the full court press but the Chicks were unable to convert at the other end or at least draw a foul and get to the line. Batesville outscored the Chicks, 6-2, over the final minute and a half of play to seal the deal.

"We fought back and still had a chance to win it but we couldn't finish the job tonight," said Tyer.

For the game, A.J. Love led the Chicks with 12 points, Lewis and A.J. Guyton each scored 11 and Beasley added 10.

Goodwin led all scorers with 20 points for the Pioneers and Ford added 20.

The loss drops the Chicks to 6-8 overall and more importantly, 0-3 in the 5A-East. They travel to Nettleton Tuesday to take on the Raiders.

GIRLS Batesville 60, Blytheville 37

The Batesville Lady Pioneers defeated the Lady Chickasaws, 60-37, Friday night.

Blytheville's Terika Dillard drives past Batesville's Gracen Ratliff Friday night.

Batesville led 16-9 after one period, 34-19 at half-time and 51-27 heading into the fourth. Timara Rogers led the Lady Chicks with nine points and Luarissa Campbell added eight points.

Hannah Qualls led all scorers with 15 points for the Lady Pioneers (14-1, 3-0 5A-East). The Lady Chicks (3-13, 0-3 5A-East) travel to Nettleton Tuesday night to take on the Lady Raiders.