Blue Devils and Patriots prepare for battle

Blue Devils and Patriots prepare for battle

Both teams coming off confidence building games, the West Memphis Blue Devils host the Marion Patriots tonight

WM School District They'll pull out the foldaway bleachers on the north end of Lehr Arena tonight.

They'll need to because the West Memphis Blue Devils host the Marion Patriots in a 6A/5A-3 Conference game that will have postseason implications.

A capacity crowd could very well show up at Lehr for this one.

West Memphis (19-3 overall, 12-2 in the conference) earned a 62-49 victory at Greene County Tech last Friday night while Marion became the second team to give undefeated Jonesboro a run for its money before losing 66-62 on the same evening.

So, tonight, both the Blue Devils and the Pats have a healthy dose of confidence. It's likely both teams will need it.

The Blue Devils took a 50-48 victory over Marion last month on two free throws by ninth-grader Chris Moore with 1.1 seconds to play. West Memphis got back on the winning track at Greene County Tech after falling 48-45 in a heartbreaker at home against Jonesboro last Tuesday night.

The Blue Devils got off to a hot start at Tech, hitting on 14 of 21 shots from the field in the first half, including 3 of 4 from three-point range. The visitors ran out to a 16-3 lead after one quarter.

Junior Sidney Stinson made his first start of the season at point guard and the son of the former Blue Devil by the same name didn't disappiont.

Stinson ran the offense smoothly, showing his usual calm and confidence with the ball. He scored 9 points, grabbed 6 rebounds and dished for a game-high 7 assists.

'Sidney did a great job at point tonight,' said West Memphis Head Coach Larry Bray. 'He's one of three guys we use at that position, so it wasn't like he was playing a spot he hadn't played before. When we go with an uptempo pace he's the guy I like to put in there because he loves to get up and down the floor.'

Even though the Blue Devils built a 36-17 halftime lead, issues cropped up for the visitors in the second half. The Eagles (12-8, 6-8) got hot from the three-point arc, hitting on 8 of 15 from that range in the second half.

For the game, Tech connected on 12 of 23 from long distance, leading Bray to dissect his team's defense in the second half that saw the hosts cut West Memphis' 19-point lead to 11 with 2:15 to play.

'You have to get on their shooters, I don't care how deep they're shooting,' Bray said. 'It took us a while to get out there on them, and once we did they just backed up and started shooting them deeper.'

West Memphis owned the battle of the boards, 22-16 and it forced 10 first-half turnovers.

Moore was once again solid, leading the Blue Devils in scoring and rebounding with 14 and 8 respectively. All but two of Moore's rebounds came in the first quarter.

Junior Curtis Washington shot it well all night, hitting on three treys and 13 points. Senior Tevin Mosley hit for 8 points and junior Kelsey Hubbard added 7 points.

By Billy Woods