By Scott Loftis

SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com

The Eureka Springs Lady Highlanders were playing an overmatched opponent in the first round of the 2A-1 district tournament Monday night at Highlander Arena, and the final score reflected that.
The Lady Highlanders held Haas Hall Bentonville scoreless in the first half and rolled to a 51-9 victory.
“We were able to work on some things that we knew we needed to be able to do for (Tuesday night’s game against Cotter), so that was good,” Eureka Springs coach Kyle Farrar said.
Nine players scored for the Lady Highlanders, led by 13 points from freshman guard Caitlyn Lester and 10 from senior post Naudia Lamar.
The winner of Tuesday night’s game between Eureka Springs and Cotter will clinch a spot in next week’s 2A West regional tournament. Although Cotter swept the two regular-season matchups, Farrar said that won’t have any bearing on Tuesday’s game.
“We’ve done everything in the world in the first two games against them to put ourselves behind the 8-ball,” Farrar said. “And those are the things that we’ve worked on and talked about for the last two days. Like I told our team, you get to this time of year and somebody is going to regionals tonight. It really has absolutely nothing to do with either of the first two matchups because the score is still going to start zero to zero. Whoever plays the best and makes the most plays gets to win. And that’s the good thing about this time of year.”