Savage Heat streak stretches to 14
Photo by Aaric Bryan<br>Savage Heat's Matea DePoe pulls down a rebound in the fourth quarter against Alberton in Hot Springs Saturday.
When your players are skilled, smart, disciplined and unselfish, coaching is an easy job.
Savage Heat coach Mike Benson has all those qualities in his team and said his job was one of the easiest around. In fact, he said his job is so simple that people have been telling him a monkey could do it.
"Well, I'm one lucky monkey," Benson said after sitting back and watching his team dismantle Alberton 62-39 to win their 14th game in a row and move to 14-1 on the year. In the Savage Heat's 14-game win streak, they have been faster, more aggressive and simply better than most teams, but seldom taller, which was the case when they took on the Lady Panthers at home Saturday.
Hot Springs took advantage of the height discrepancy, as junior Matea DePoe and sophomore Randi Arnold dominated the paint, shutting down any inside game for the Panthers and each finishing in double figures in scoring. Arnold finished with 12 points and DePoe put in 10.
"Our bigs (Arnold and DePoe) did a great job tonight," Benson said. He said realizing that they were bigger than Alberton and taking advantage of it, is what makes them so good and his job easy. Benson said that Arnold and DePoe, who each finished with five rebounds, also helped start the Savage Heat's fast break. Hot Springs out-rebounded Alberton 26-to-16 in the game. Whitney Wood led the way with seven rebounds. Wood also had five points.
It wasn't only the rebounds that led to easy transition points for Hot Springs, their defense forced Alberton into making 26 turnovers, compared to the Savage Heat's 11 turnovers in the game.
Eight of Arnold's 12 points came in the first half and helped the Savage Heat take a 28-16 lead into halftime. The margin would have been a lot wider, except the Panthers hit four of their seven 3-pointers in the half.
Alberton used the long distance shot to cut into the Savage Heat's lead in the third quarter, when Jordan Marvin made a 3-pointer with just over five minutes to play in the quarter slim the lead to 21-32. the Savage Heat dominated the rest of the game, outscoring the Panthers 30-15 for a 62-39 rout.