By Scott Loftis

SLoftis@CarrollCoNews.com

Monday night’s game against Haas Hall Rogers in the first round of the 2A-1 district tournament went very differently for the Eureka Springs Highlanders than the teams’ most recent meeting just six days earlier.
But the end result was the same, as the Highlanders erased a first-half deficit to beat the Danes 54-53.
On Tuesday, Feb. 7, the Highlanders had been Haas Hall 88-51on the Danes’ home floor behind 57 points from senior Dylan Johnson.
“We were behind the whole game,” Eureka Springs coach Brian Rambo said of Monday’s matchup. “For whatever reason, we didn’t play well in the first half.”
After trailing by six at halftime, the Highlanders cut the deficit to two by the end of the third quarter and finally took their first lead with about three minutes remaining in the fourth quarter.
Johnson scored 24 points to lead Eureka Springs, while senior center Shane Holloway added 17 and senior guard Elijah Williams scored 10.
“Elijah made two three-pointers in the second half, one late in the fourth quarter that was huge, huge for us when we were struggling to score,” Rambo said. “Elijah played probably his best game of the year.”
The victory sent Eureka Springs to a second-round matchup against Yellville-Summit on Tuesday night, with a spot in next week’s 2A West regional tournament on the line. The Highlanders and Panthers split their two regular-season matchups, with each winning on the other’s home floor.
“We just were kind of out of sorts last night,” Rambo said Tuesday afternoon. “Hopefully we’ll play better tonight because we’ve got a better basketball team coming in.”