SATURDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2011 SPORTSSECTION B

Sports Editor Kyle Troutman501-268-8621

ktroutman@thedailycitizen.comDaily Citizen

The

ROSE BUD WINS PANGBURN TOURNEY

Football is a mainstay in White County, and it’s not just the boys donning the pads any-more.

Thanks to the nearly 60-team-strong Women’s Football Alli-

ance and the Little Rock-based Arkansas Wildcats, three White County women have the oppor-tunity to suit up and play com-

petitive tackle football.Jennifer Dennler, the fi rst of

the women to hear about the team, said she has wanted to play football since she was a child.

“Since I was a kid I always wanted to play football, but since I was a girl, that created some problems,” she said. “I went to open tryouts [for the Wildcats in the spring], and a

Local women hit gridiron

BY KYLE TROUTMANktroutman@thedailycitizen.com

PENSACOLA, Fla. — The Har-ding women’s basketball team fell to Texas Woman’s 52-62 on Friday in the opening round of the West Florida Classic.

The loss snaps a four-game winning streak by the Lady Bi-sons.

After trailing by 12 in the middle of the second half, the Lady Bisons (6-3) rallied to pull

within fi ve with 2:52 remain-ing on two fi eld goals and three free throws. Harding then went 0-for-3 in the closing minutes as the Pioneers hit two layups and made four free throws to seal the victory.

Texas Woman’s held the Lady Bisons to shooting 30.9 percent from the fi eld (17-of-55) and 22 percent from behind

Harding women drop Florida openerBY NATHAN LOONEYSpecial to The Daily Citizen

The Course at Rivers Oaks Senior Members Golf Asso-ciation’s tournament played Wednesday in the fi nale for 2011.

Wet conditions, which re-sulted in adjusted tees and a short course, made for an in-teresting winter tournament.

Two teams tied for fi rst place with a 9-under par 62. Team No. 1 included David Martin, R.D. Causey, Jack Boustead, Don Baugh and Lavern Richey. Team No. 2 was Wendell Dil-

lard, Wayne Blickenstaff, Fer-rell Stokes, Moe Hinnekamp and Tom Howard.

The third place team, with a 66 score, inclulded George Austin, Bob Puckett, Charlie Hill and Mike Roberts.

Closest to the pin results for the tournament were: hole No. 5, David Martin; hole No. 8, Moe Hinnekamp; hole No. 11, George Austin; hole No. 13, Sid Tate and hole No. 14, Wayland Holloway.

The next senior members’ tournament will be Wednesday.

Two senior teams tie in 2011 season closer

The Daily Citizen

Rose Bud wins Greers Ferry Lake Classic

Rose Bud’s varsity girls bas-ketball team, 12-1, defeated Mount Vernon-Enola Friday night, 59-49, to take first place in the Greers Ferry Lake

Classic in Pangburn.

Behind for much of the first quarter, the Lady Ramblers

found a 23-21 lead in the second with only 1:40 left in the half. Rose Bud extended the lead slowly in the second half, getting up by 10 points with 5:15 left in the game. Mount Vernon-Enola tried to foul late in the game, but the Lady Ramblers shot well from the free throw line and held the lead.

Head Coach Mandy Good-win said the Mount Vernon-Enola’s offensive rebounds were the only thing that kept the Lady Warhawks in the game. Rose Bud was out-rebounded 17-10 in the first half, but, in the end, Goodwin said holding Mount Vernon-Enola to only 49 points was good for her team going for-ward.

Tori Willborg led Rose Bud with 18 points, while Lauren Wynne put up 15 points.

The Lady Ramblers will trav-el to Riverview Tuesday, with games starting at 5 p.m.

Wildcats win over Lonoke, 45-35

Harding Academy’s varsity boys basketball team, 8-6, took third place in Beebe’s Gillam Farms/First Security Bank Tournament Friday eve-ning with a 44-35 win over

Lonoke.The Wild-

cats jumped to an early lead, 16-10 at the end of the first, and

held the advantage through-out the game. Harding Acad-emy outscored Lonoke by 5 points in the fourth quarter, getting some easy layups to extend the scoreline and nab the 10-point win.

Will Francis led Harding Academy with 17 points and seven rebounds. Tom Gould put up 13 points in the third-place game.

The Lady Wildcats return to action Tuesday when they hit the road to face Brinkley in their conference opener. Games start at 4:30 p.m.

Harding Academy downs Lonoke, 60-35

Harding Academy’s varsity girls basketball team, 7-5, took fifth place in Beebe’s Gillam Farms/First Security Bank Tournament Friday after-noon with a 60-35 win over Lonoke.

The Lady Wildcats worked the full-court press for most of the first half, building up a 46-17 lead to take into the break. Head Coach Rusty Garner said the team played extremely well the past

couple of days following the loss to Sacred Heart in the first round of the tournament. He hopes his girls’ play will transition into the conference season beginning next week.

Riley Rose led Harding Academy with 19 points and 7 steals, Kristen Lester scored 13 points and Lynley Crowell put up 11 points.

The Lady Wildcats return to action Tuesday when they hit the road to face Brinkley in their conference opener. Games start at 4:30 p.m.

 Beebe takes third place

in home tourney

Beebe’s varsity girls bas-ketball team, 9-3, took third place in the Gillam Farms/First Security Bank Tourna-ment Friday afternoon with a 50-30 win over Sacred Heart.

Up 27-11 at halftime, the Lady Badgers combined strong defense and potent offense to continue extend-

ing the lead by about 6 points each quarter. Head Coach Greg Richey said his team did a great job using their size ad-vantage to defend in the paint.

Angelina Williams led Beebe with 25 points, Kalela Miller put up 14 points and Jamie Jackson added 6 points.

The Lady Badgers will travel to Little Rock Christian Mon-day night with games starting at 5 p.m.

 Riverview boys win Carlisle Tournament

Riverview’s varsity boys basketball team, 4-7, defeat-ed Carlisle 60-50 Thursday night to take first place in the Carlisle Tournament.

The Raid-ers went down early in the game, but picked up their play

and pulled back to within one possession at the end of the first quarter. From there, Riverview seized control of the game, switching up defenses to keep Carlisle on its toes and from getting comfortable.

The Raiders led by 7 points at halftime, then held a 10-point lead for much of the second half, except for a cou-ple minutes in the third quar-ter when Carlisle hit back-to-back 3-pointers. Shortly after, Chris Johnson and Sidney Owens each knocked down 3-pointers to extend the lead back to 10.

Head Coach Jon Laffoon said he is proud of his team’s ability to recognize defensive switches.

Desmond Pettis led the Raiders with 20 points, Isaac Howard put up 17 points, Johnson scored 13 points and Owens netted 8 points.

Riverview returns to action Tuesday, when they host Rose Bud with games starting at 5 p.m.

Please see WFA | 3B

Women living their dreams in Little Rock league

Please see BISONS | 2B

Rose Bud’s Alexis Jack-son, above, puts up a shot as she gets fouled by a MountVernon-Enola player during the Lady Ramblers’ 59-19 championship victo-ry over the Lady Warhawks Friday night. Rose Bud will travel to Riverview Tues-day, with games starting at 5 p.mKyle Troutman/ktroutman@thedailycitizen.com

Lady Rambler Kyndel Mar-tin, left, just after splitting the seam between two Mount Vernon-Enola de-fensers, prepares to put in a layup during Rose Bud’s 59-19 championship victo-ry over the Lady Warhawks Friday night. Kyle Troutman/ktroutman@thedailycitizen.com

BASKETBALL ROUNDUP

LEXINGTON — Ken-tucky coach John Calipari began a list when he was asked whether he and Louisville coach Rick Pi-tino are too much alike to get along.

“Similarities? We’ve both taken three teams to the Final Four, we both got fi red in the NBA and we’re Italians with big noses,” Calipari said Fri-day. “I respect what he’s done, respect the pro-gram, respect the city and the school.”

No. 3 Kentucky (12-1) and No. 4 Louisville (12-1) renew their rivalry in the most anticipated yearly game in the Com-monwealth on Saturday at Rupp Arena, where even the smallest details are scrutinized.

So when a video came out this month show-ing Calipari and Pitino chatting at a high school game in Mount Wash-ington, Ky., there was an abundance of speculation about just what the two coaches discussed.

“We don’t send Christ-mas cards, but we’re cor-dial to each other,” Cali-pari said. “I went up to him, talked to him, told him he’s doing a fabulous job with his team, the way they’re playing, blah, blah, blah. And he said, ‘Your team’s really good and dah, dah, dah.’ OK?

“He said ‘I hope we beat you’ and I said ‘I hope we beat you’ and I went and got a Diet Coke. That was about it. I don’t know what to tell you.”

The rivalry is as much about the two rabid fan bases as it is the players.

Between the two schools, 13 players have never participated in a Kentucky-Louisville game. This time, the schools have the highest combined ranking in se-ries history. But Kentucky freshman Anthony Davis said he’s recognized the passion simply by the amount of tweets he’s received from fans about beating Louisville.

“We guess it’s a big deal for them,” Davis said.

Davis hears even more back and forth about what fans think of the respective leaders of the program.

“(They think) that they hate each other. One al-ways goes out and par-ties when the other one loses,” Davis said. “They look alike, but coach Pi-tino, I’ve never seen him coach so I can’t say how they remind me of each other.”

Only one side will have a reason to celebrate on Saturday night even though Calipari insisted he has no ill-feelings to-ward Pitino, saying any perceived friction comes from proximity.

“It’s two different pro-grams and two different leagues. We’re not really recruiting against each other. It’s just this one time and our fans are go-ing to be happy or their fans are going to be hap-py, and that’s it,” Calipari said. “As far as our team, I’m telling you we respect them. Our players do not have animosity or ha-tred.”

Louisville has been quiet since its 20-game home winning streak was snapped in a 71-68 loss to No. 12 Georgetown on Wednesday night. The Cardinals did not have any media availability ahead of this game and have lost the last two in the series.

“I think Kentucky is the better basketball team right now,” Pitino said af-ter the loss to the Hoyas. “Running up and down and trying to outscore Kentucky would be a fu-tile attempt to try to get a ‘W’.”

Kentucky is led by Do-ron Lamb, averaging 15.8 points, and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, who is chipping in 13.5 points. Davis is av-eraging a double-double with 11.6 points and 10.2 rebounds.

“We know they’re just as athletic, we know they’re a good team, too,” Ken-tucky senior Darius Miller said. “We can’t come in thinking that we’re more athletic or we’re the better team. We’ve got to come in and play.”

Louisville guard Chris Smith measured it in NBA talent.

“Every guy on their team is, I guess, a pro,” Smith said. “A win Satur-day would come back and erase the sting, but at the same time we’re 0-1 in the Big East. We just have to keep our composure and win the game on Satur-day.”

It certainly won’t be easy. Kentucky has the nation’s longest winning streak at 43 games and hasn’t lost since Calipari came to Lexington in 2009.

“It’s a very hard place to play,” said Louisville for-ward Kyle Kuric, who is averaging 13.5 points. “I’ll just leave it at that.”

The Daily Citizen Saturday, December 31, 2011 • Page 3B

SPORTS

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — Mike Anderson’s heart never truly left Arkansas.

And when a struggling Razorbacks basketball program called in 2011, Anderson listened to his heart and returned to the place he called home.

Anderson was hired away from Missouri as Arkansas’ new coach in March to succeed the fi red John Pelphrey.

As an assistant for 17 seasons under former coach Nolan Richardson, Anderson was a part of the golden days of Razorbacks basketball, highlighted by the 1994 national champi-onship.

Arkansas had fallen on hard times since Rich-ardson’s fi ring in 2002, reaching the NCAA Tour-nament just three times while attendance at Bud Walton Arena fell from an average of 20,134 during that national champion-ship season to an all-time low of 12,022 in Pelphrey’s last season.

Enter Anderson, lured back to Arkansas by ath-letic director Jeff Long to bring back the tradition of winning. Long did so with a seven-year, $2.2-mil-lion annual contract while Anderson made it clear he had no interest in other jobs.

“Under Mike’s leader-ship, I am confi dent the Razorbacks will be suc-cessful in the future on and off the court,” Long said. “The decision to hire Mike Anderson as head coach is based on my fi rm belief that he is the right person to lead the Razor-back program today and in the years to come.”

An estimated 5,000 Ar-kansas fans welcomed An-derson home when he was introduced in Bud Walton Arena. The show of sup-port was equaled Ander-son’s relief in returning after coaching stops at Al-abama-Birmingham and with the Tigers.

“I’m happy to be back,” Anderson said. “This is home, this is home for Mike Anderson.”

The question, now, is how soon can Ander-son lead Arkansas to the NCAA Tournament — and make an impact once there?

Especially when it was another state school, Ar-kansas-Little Rock, that reached the tournament this year for the fi rst time in 21 seasons after a sur-prising run through the Sun Belt Conference Tour-nament in Hot Springs.

The Razorbacks were 69-59 in four seasons under Pelphrey, though the former coach did put together one of the top recruiting classes in the

country before his fi ring.Anderson managed to

keep that class together after he arrived, and the four highly touted fresh-men (Hunter Mickelson, BJ Young, Ky Madden and Devonta Abron) have played a signifi cant role as Arkansas opened with a 9-3 record under their new coach.

Football also dominated headlines for much of the year — across the state.

Arkansas lost to Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl in January, then lost quarterback Ryan Mal-lett when he left after his junior season and was drafted by the NFL’s New England Patriots.

That didn’t slow the Ra-zorbacks and coach Bobby Petrino, who entered the 2011 season by encourag-ing talk of Southeastern Conference and national championships with ju-nior quarterback Tyler Wilson taking over as the starter.

Wilson’s performance didn’t disappoint, he earned fi rst-team All-SEC honors, but Arkansas suf-fered a major blow in the preseason when running back Knile Davis broke his ankle and the team eventually fell short of Petrino’s championship goals.

Still, the Razorbacks were ranked as high as No. 3 late in the season, their only losses were to the two teams playing for the BCS national championship — LSU and Alabama.

Arkansas fi nished the regular season 10-2, win-ning at least 10 games in back-to-back seasons for the fi rst time since 1988-89 and reached the Cot-ton Bowl, where the Ra-zorbacks will face Kansas State on Jan. 6.

The Razorbacks weren’t the only FBS program in Arkansas to make head-lines in 2011.

Arkansas State opened the season with high, yet cautious, expectations un-der fi rst-year coach Hugh Freeze.

Led by Sun Belt Con-ference Player of the Year Ryan Aplin at quar-terback, Arkansas State (10-2) had its fi rst 10-win season since 1986, when it

was a member of the I-AA Southland Conference. The Red Wolves were un-defeated in the Sun Belt and will play Northern Illinois in the GoDaddy.com Bowl on Jan. 8.

For all of Arkansas State’s on-fi eld success, however, the school made more news off the fi eld following the regular sea-son.

First, Freeze left after one season to take over at Mississippi — taking much of the Red Wolves’ excitement with him.

Any despair or frustra-tion with Freeze’s sudden departure was quickly for-gotten less than two weeks later when Auburn offen-sive coordinator Gus Mal-zahn was hired as ASU’s new coach.

Malzahn, who helped guide the Tigers to the BCS national champion-ship last season, cut his coaching teeth as a high school coach for 14 sea-sons in Arkansas.

Malzahn then began his college coaching career at Arkansas, with a stop at Tulsa before landing with Auburn. His name had been linked with several top jobs over the past two years, including Vander-bilt, Maryland, North Car-olina and Kansas.

However, it was the open job in his home state that Malzahn eventually accepted — providing a hiring coup of sorts and more time in the national spotlight for Arkansas State.

“This is where I learned football, from Arkansas high school coaches,” Mal-zahn said. “I’m not a nor-mal college coach as far as the progression goes. So, I’ve always looked for the right place at the right time. Guess what? This is the right place and the right time.”

At Oaklawn Park, Ar-kansas native and trainer Jinks Fires won his fi rst Grade 1 victory when Ar-charcharch used an over-powering fi nal kick to win the $1 million Arkansas Derby.

The colt went off at 25-1 after a third-place fi nish at the Rebel Stakes and was ridden by Jon Court. He was owned by another Ar-kansas native, Bob Yagos, and the win booked the fi rst trip to the Kentucky Derby for both Fires and Yagos.

In high school football, Fayetteville dethroned Bentonville and its 25-game winning streak to win the Class 7A state championship. The cham-pionship was the sec-ond since 2007 for the Bulldogs, who narrowly fi nished atop the Arkan-sas Associated Press poll ahead of Class 4A cham-pion Pulaski Academy.

Anderson’s return tops Arkansas sports stories

BY KURT VOIGTAssociated Press

couple weeks later, got a call and made the team. It was the longest two weeks of my life.”

Searcy native and 20-year-old Destinee Pratt heard about the team through Dennler, and immediately jumped on board.

“I’ve always had an interest in it,” she said. “Both my brothers played football and it’s always something I’ve wanted to do. Jen told me about the team and I rode with her to tryouts and said, ‘Lets do it.’”

Although neither Denn-ler nor Pratt have played a regular-season game yet, both participate in prac-tices in Little Rock and are anxious to get the season underway in April.

“We play at Little Rock Central High School,

which is pretty much the football Mecca here in the state,” Dennler said. “Last year, the girls would have to drive themselves to out-of-state games, but that’s not the case anymore thanks to the new own-ers.”

Instead of driving in separate cars to games in cities like Memphis, Austin, New Orleans and Tulsa, owner David Jones has set up a team bus for the women to ride in. Al-though the players have to pay $250 each year for insurance, uniforms and equipment, Dennler said the team receives many donations to keep the spending in check.

“I’m stoked to get out there and play,” Dennler said. “This has been my little dream. Little boys want to play for the Cow-boys, but little girls on the tomboy side couldn’t have

a dream like that. Now, I have a chance to live my dream and teach my 5-year-old daughter no dream is too big.”

Pratt said the future games bring a range of emotions, but the biggest one is excitement.

“I’m really excited and pumped about it,” she said. “I’m nervous a little bit, but that will go away in the game. It’s nice to get to meet new people and have a team dedicated to play-ing good football.”

Pratt, at only 20 years old, is one of the youngest women on the squad, but her age doesn’t phase her.

“It’s all about showing your best and coming out to play and win,” she said. “I’m little, but I’m tough. I can hold my own.”

Brittany Reinbolt, a Searcy graduate, is the third White County wom-an to earn a spot on the

squad.“Brittany is a beast,”

Dennler said. “As far as talent goes, the sky is the limit for her.”

Another connection to White County may be found in Head Coach Mace Thomas, who grad-uated from Harding Uni-versity in 2004.

“I’ve always loved foot-ball, and since I’m not playing, I’m always look-ing for avenues to get back in,” he said. “The girls came to me with the idea to help the Wildcats, and it’s a blessing to get to work with the different women on the team. Not a lot of women can do what they’re doing, so watching the progression gives me a great feeling.”

According to wfafoot-ball.com, the Wildcats will open regular-season play the weekend of April 21, when they host Memphis.

WFA: Women’s league schedules season opener on April 21

CONTINUED FROM 1B

Kentucky rivals meetagain with top rankings

BY COLIN FLYAssociated Press

Associated Press

Kentucky head coach John Calipari, above, and Louisville coach Rick Pitino, below, have kept their tradition-proud programs at the top of college basket-ball. The two state rivals meet again today ranked No. 3 and No. 4 in the Asso-ciated Press basketball polls, respectively.

“Under Mike’s (Anderson)

leadership, I am confident the

Razorbacks will be successful in the future

on and off the court.”

Jeff LongArkansas athletic director

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