Grizzlies wear down Fayetteville

FAYETTEVILLE -- For nearly three quarters, Fayetteville held one half of the Fort Smith Northside dynamic duo in check. Isaiah Joe couldn't be contained after that. Joe was held to five points until the final moments of the third quarter, when his baseline 3-pointer tied the game and set the Grizzlies off in the right direction the rest of the way to a 62-47 win in Bulldog Arena. Northside battled poor shooting, sloppy defense and not offense from Joe through three quarters. The Grizzlies stayed in the game as Tevin Brewer basically carried the team. But the final eight minutes were much different. "(Isaiah) hit a dead ball three that didn't even count and that got him going," Fayetteville coach Kyle Adams said. "Then he hits two or three more after that. "He's a good player and they're a really good team. I told coach (Eric) Burnett, they're going to be one of the teams probably competing for a state championship. They've just got good balance, they play hard and they're so unorthodox in what they do. It's so hard because they're going to trap you from different places and Eric does a great job with that." Until Joe, a 6-foot-2 Arkansas verbal commit, knocked down the late third quarter 3 pointer, Fayetteville had the lead -- and the momentum -- for most of the night. The Purple'Dogs (0-1) relied on seniors Caleb Finney and Tyler Roth, who rarely left the court, to lead the way. Finley finished with 17 points and Roth added 15 as Fayetteville had leads of 14-12 after one quarter and 29-24 at halftime. With Finney and Roth exhausted by the fourth quarter, however, Northside's defense pounced in the final eight minutes by forcing five costly turnovers to pull away. "I told our guys we can't rely on our offense," Burnett said. "To win in big games, against tough teams and tradition-rich teams like Fayetteville, you've got to do it with defense. We finally got our defense going." Joe scored 12 of his 20 points in the fourth quarter, but Brewer was the one constant for the Grizzlies, scoring a game-high 29 -- with 17 coming in the first half. "I don't have the luxury to rest Caleb or Ty very often and you could tell they got tired," Adams said. "But I thought our effort was unbelievable. I thought we guarded extremely well. Coach (Brad) Stamps did an excellent job with our defense and we did what we had to do defensively. "Quinn Schach came off the bench and tried to contain Tevin and that's a job in itself, and then eventually Isaiah Joe just got hot." Fayetteville returns to action Friday when it hosts Conway in a game moved up to 5:45 p.m. to accommodate fans planning to attend the Fayetteville-Conway Class 7A state football playoff game which begins Friday at 7 p.m.

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GRIZZLIES WEAR DOWN FAYETTEVILLE

VERNON TARVER

Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette | 11/16/2016