North Little Rock bounds past Bentonville in second half to complete historic season, lock up Class 6A boys basketball crown

By Jeff Halpern I Photos by Tommy Land

HOT SPRINGS —All year long, the North Little Rock Charging Wildcats answered the bell when challenged.

Thursday night was no different as the Charging Wildcats (28-3) broke open a 32-27 game at halftime with a 65-47 victory over Bentonville (22-9) for the Class 6A state championship before a crowd of 4,237 at Bank OZK Arena.

“All year long, we talked about toughness, and this has to be the toughest team we’ve had,” said North Little Rock head coach Johnny Rice said. “This is a group that had the target on their backs all year, and they set expectations to the point where if we didn’t win by 20, people thought there was something wrong. This team went went places where no other team has gone and I will say this, this is the most dominant team in North Little Rock High School history.”

The Charging Wildcats were led by state tournament MVP Nick Smith, who finished with 25 points and six rebounds while making 8-of-16 shots from the floor and 8-of-9 free throws. Kel’el Ware, despite sitting for the final 6:14 of the second quarter after picking up his second foul and a technical foul, had 8 points, 11 rebounds and 7 blocks. Corey Washington had 10 points 4-of-11 shooting. Charles Maris and Felix Wade had nine points.

North Little Rock shot 40.7 percent (22-of-54) from the floor, including 8-of-24 on three-pointers and made 13-of-17 free throws. They won the rebounding battle 38-35, committed six turnovers, scored 14 points off 11 Bentonville turnovers.

Bentonville was held to 31.5 percent shooting (17-of-540 from the floor, including 5-of-22 three-pointers and made 8-of-15 free throws.

Jaylen Lee finished with 12 points for the Tigers. Caden Miller had 7 points and 12 rebounds.

“I felt we did what we had to do, but the shots were not falling,” said Bentonville Coach Dick Rippee. “I thought we came out as the more aggressive team. I know some teams when the play North Little Rock are very respectful of their talent, but we came out and got good shots, but we didn’t get them to fall.”

Bentonville jumped out to a 6-0 lead thanks to a three-pointer by Harrison Hicks and a three-point play Hayden Shanks. North Little Rock started to come back thanks to a three-pointer by Maris, a jumper by Smith and a three-point play by Smith that tied the game 8-8. After a free throw by Abel Hutchinson put the Tigers up 9-8 and a jumper by Lee made it 11-8, Washington had a layup to close it 11-10 and smith had a tip in to put the Charging Wildcats up for good at 12-11.

Carrying a 16-11 lead into the second quarter, Ware scored off the inbounds play to make it 18-11, Smith added a three-pointer to make it 21-11. 

After Ware picked up his second and third fouls at the 6:14 mark, Bentonville crawled back. Hutchinson and Shanks made two of the four free throws to close it to 21-14. Miller made two free throws at the 5:49 mark to make it 21-16 and Hutchinson had a layup to make it 21-18.

Smith scored in the lane to make it 23-18 and added one free throw at the 4:11 mark to make it 24-18. Two baskets by Lee closed it to 24-22 before Maris made consecutive three-pointers to put the Charging Wildcats up 30-25. Smith added two free throws with 22.3 seconds left in the half to make it 32-25 before Mason Krakau scored at the end of the half to make it 32-27.

“I thought we did some things that were uncharacteristic, but we took their best shot and were up five,” said Rice on his team’s play in the first half. “The main thing we had to do was keep defending, rebounding and share the ball. We had some people step up for us tonight.”

Smith scored the first four points of the third quarter to make it 36-27. After Hutchinson made a three-pointer to close it to 36-30, Washington added two free throws at the 5:05 mark to make it 38-30 and scored on an alley top to make it 40-30. After a free throw by Miller, Washington drove the lane to make it 42-31, a lead the Charging Wildcats maintained through the end of the quarter when they led 48-37.

Wade started the fourth quarter with three consecutive three-pointers to break it it open and give the Charging Wildcats a 57-42 lead, ending Bentonville’s hopes.

“The threes helped separate the game,” Rice said, “Felix hit some big ones and Charles hit some in the first half.”

Smith added, “Felix made more threes tonight than he did all year.”

Smith, who transferred from Sylvan Hills and signed with Arkansas in November, was very happy to have a state championship. “This year has been like a roller coaster. First I was ineligible and then I was eligible and people were talking about me and it was really hard at times. We had a lot of people step up for us and we kept playing together.”

After Jonesboro, which handed North Little Rock one of its’ three losses (62-48 on Dec. 4) on the season, won the Class 5A championship, 55-28, over Marion, the question was asked of Rice if it would be a good idea to revive the overall state championship tournament, which ended in the early 1990s.

“It would be good for the state,” said Rice.

After falling short, Rippee was proud of his team for getting this far. “I want to thank our four seniors for working this hard to getting us there. We didn’t have a great conference season (9-5 after winning last year’s 6A-West title at 14-0). We felt we should have won it, but Fayetteville was better, but I wouldn’t trade last 14-0 record that for the experience of getting here tonight,” said Rippee.