By Rob Patrick

London Abernathy knocked down a trio of 3-pointers in the first quarter to help the Bryant Lady Hornets freshman team off to a fast start as they cruised to a 41-13 win over the Sheridan Lady Stingers on Thursday, Jan. 22.

Abernathy wound up with 15 points to lead all scorers in the game as the Lady Hornets improved to 14-4 overall and 7-2 in the South Division of the Central Arkansas Junior High Conference, keeping the heat on leaders Cabot South (tied with Bryant at 7-2) and North Little Rock (9-0).

Bryant, which lost its only two league games to the leaders, get another shot at them the first week of February. In the meantime, they were set to try to get past Mount St. Mary’s on the road on Monday, Jan. 26, and Lake Hamilton at home on Thursday, Jan. 29.

Sheridan came into Thursday’s game without Karson Henry, who has done the bulk of the team’s scoring this season. The Lady Stingers struggled mightily against the Bryant press, turning the ball over 17 times in the first half while attempting just four shots from the floor and six free throws. They hit three of the free throws and none of the field goals and trailed 20-3 at the half.

By Rob Patrick

The Bryant Hornets freshman basketball team is starting to develop a knack for winning close games. It may serve them well as they head down the stretch drive of their schedule leading into the Central Arkansas Junior High Conference post-season tournament.

For the third time in four games, the Hornets earned victories in the South Division of the CAJHC and, in each, their opponent had a chance to win or tie with a shot at the buzzer that failed to fall.

On Thursday, Jan. 15, the Hornets stunned Conway Blue, which had been one of the top teams in the division, 38-35. In a tight game, Bryant took a 1-point lead in the final minute on a stickback by Cody McPherson. Conway, in turn, missed a free throw then had to start fouling. The Cats had just two team fouls at that point. They had to foul four times in the last 20 seconds to get the Hornets to the free-throw line. But before they could commit the seventh foul that would’ve done the trick, Brantley Cozart broke free behind the defense for a layup to make it a 3-point game.

Conway got a shot to tie it at the end but couldn’t get it to go and the Hornets held on.

Prior to that, Cabot South had a chance to tie it with two free throws in the final seconds. After the first try failed, the Panthers’ J.D. Melby bounced the second shot off the rim and the backboard, beat everybody to the carom but missed the last-second shot that would’ve sent it into overtime.

On Thursday, Jan. 22, there they were again. Cozart had snapped a 21-21 tie with a drive up the baseline for a scoop shot that rolled in with 1:09 to go.

By Rob Patrick

A week after scoring the most points in a game by a Lady Hornets team since 1997, the Bryant team eclipsed those 81 points in a high-octane 92-85 win over the defending Class 7A State champion Conway Lady Wampus Cats on Tuesday, Jan. 20.

The 81 the Lady Hornets scored against Van Buren the week before was the most since the 1997-98 team scored 96 in a win at a Thanksgiving tournament in Lovelady, Texas.

Against Conway, they needed just about every one of those 92 points too.

Even with just one starter back from its State championship team, Conway didn’t expect to be coming into the game with an 0-3 mark in the 7A-Central Conference. So the Lady Cats were playing with some urgency, trying to get out of the league cellar against the Lady Hornets who came in unbeaten in league play after winning just three conference games over the last two seasons.

Conway held the upper hand early but Bryant closed the first quarter with a rush and never relinquished the lead. In the third quarter, the margin ballooned to as much as 20 before the Lady Cats began whittling on it.

Eventually, Conway got the margin down to 2 only to have the Lady Hornets come through in the clutch.

“It’s good that we made some big runs early to stretch ourselves out a lead,” commented Lady Hornets coach Blake Condley. “That’s the thing I try to tell the girls, it’s a game of runs. We’ve just got to make our runs bigger than their runs. And that’s what we did tonight.

“I’m thinking of at least three different girls that hit shots at critical times, big shots when we really needed a bucket to kind of squash their momentum a little bit,” he added.

By Rob Patrick

In 2008, the Conway Wampus Cats came within a 3-point basket of winning the Class 7A State Tournament. They’re better in 2009.

The Bryant Hornets got a first-hand view of that on Tuesday, Jan. 20, when the Cats came to the Hornets Nest and sprinted to a 60-31 win.

Conway improved to 13-2 on the season, 3-1 in the 7A-Central Conference, tied with North Little Rock and Van Buren for first place. The Cats’ lone league loss was to North Little Rock in their league opener but they were just getting back do-it-all forward Preston Purifoy, one of three players back from last year’s top six.

Purifoy, playing off the bench, scored 14 points with the other key returnees, Kenyon McNeaill and Jarvis Garner adding 10 each in about three quarters of play.

But as good as the Wampus Cats were on offense (22 of 36 from the field, 61 percent), they were at their best of the defensive end.

The Hornets tried to use the same patient offensive formula that had garnered them an impressive win over Van Buren (the Pointers’ lone league loss). Against the Pointers, the Hornets would eventually create a breakdown and get an good open look. Against Conway, though, they ran every play they had, worked it and worked it, but Conway just didn’t let up or break down defensively. The Hornets had a tough time getting open looks.

It was such that the Bryant starters only managed 6 points as a group, all by forward Dijon Benton.

ARKADELPHIA — Justine Tazelaar won the 200 yard individual medley with teammates Megan Matthew and Alyx Ramsey following in the top five to highlight the Bryant Lady Hornets’ third-place finish at a swim meet held at Ouachita Baptist University on Saturday, Jan. 17.

The Hornets finished sixth among the 13 boys teams competing, led by Jordan Combs’ second-place finish in the 500 yard freestyle.

“We had a good meet,” stated Bryant coach Angel Dale.

The Lady Hornets finished with 236 points, behind only team champion Conway (413) and El Dordado (374) in the 11-team girls competition.

The Hornets wound up with 168 points. Conway won the boys title as well with 440 points with Magnolia a distant second with 278.

By Rob Patrick

RUSSELLVILLE — In a game that had ebbed and flowed, the Russellville Cyclones, with three starters listed at 5-10 and another at 5-9, were grouped under the basket with just one Bryant Lady Hornets defender amidst them.

The first shot from 5-10 Jaimie Long was contested by Bryant’s Hannah Goshien. It missed. Long reached high for the rebound and shot again as Goshien defended. It missed and 5-10 Christen Pointer grabbed the carom for the Lady Cyclones over 5-10 teammate Amy Campbell and Goshien. With the Bryant defender’s hands up, Pointer missed as well and this time Goshien beat them all for the board and the Lady Hornets were off and running the other way.

It was a moment in the game that certainly would get overshadowed, first by the fact that the Lady Hornets improved to 3-0 in 7A-Central Conference play with a 68-54 road win, and second by the fact that Goshien scorched the nets for 20 points, hitting 7 of her 8 shot attempts, 4 of 5 from 3-point range.

Coincidentally or not, soon after Goshien’s solo battle under the basket, the Lady Hornets took off on a 7-0 run that completed a 22-3 blitz which put the Lady Hornets in command of the game.

By Rob Patrick

RUSSELLVILLE — In the rugged 7A-Central Conference, road wins are as valuable as they are hard to come by. So, when you’ve got a chance to post one and it gets away, it hurts.

On Friday, Jan. 16, the Bryant Hornets were hurting after their bid to win at Russellville fell short, 62-60.

The Hornets, coming off an impressive win at home against Van Buren, were trailing Russellville’s Cyclones, 47-39, early in the final period but rallied to tie the game on a pair of free throws by Dijon Benton with 2:06 showing. They got a chance to take the lead when Cameron Whaley set up defensively and took a charge to wipe out a shot by Russellville’s Brent Klein.

But the Cyclones’ star point guard A.J. Broadnax, limited to just 6 points through the first three quarters by the alternating defenders Benton and K-Ron Lairy, made a steal and drove for a layup to put his team ahead again, 56-54.

Broadnax wound up converting 6 of 8 free throws in the final 1:10 to preserve the lead, much to the Hornets’ frustration.

At one time or another, every young baseball player dreams of being a Major Leaguer. Usually, somewhere along the way, the game itself lets him know that he’s gone as far as he can. That moment can come at any time. The player may be in his first year of Cal Ripken or Little League, or he might be winding up his 15th season of Minor League ball.

The game will let him know.

Then there’s the select few whose dream comes true and the game embraces them at its highest level.

The dream is still alive for Tyler Sawyer who took another step towards its fulfillment on Thursday, Jan. 15, when he signed a letter of intent to continue his baseball career under scholarship at Crowder Junior College in Neosho, Mo.

Every football season brings its share of adversity for any high school team. Certainly, that’s been the case for the Bryant Hornets over the years.

To a great extent, what changed the program from perennial loser to perennial winner 10 years ago has been the ability of the coaching staff to get their troops to react to the inevitable adversity in a positive way. First of all, of course, the coaches themselves had to do that to provide an example.

No doubt, many had tried to get that done before, but none were able to quite manage it like the core group of coaches that still make up the staff at BHS with head coach Paul Calley, defensive coordinator Steve Griffith and d-line coach Brad Stroud being the longest standing members.

As the years have passed, the talent level has fluctuated as has the degree of difficulty the adversity presented. Yet, invariably, the Bryant teams regularly won more than many might’ve expected.

On Thursday, Jan. 15, at Geyer Springs Baptist Church, the 2008 Hornets team celebrated a season that may have been the most successful under the greatest adversity any Bryant football team has ever faced.

By Rob Patrick

The fourth quarter belongs to the Bryant Lady Hornets. And they proved it again on Tuesday, Jan. 13, against the Van Buren Pointerettes.

For three quarters, the two teams battled back and forth, both aggressively attacking the other’s defense, trading the lead back and forth.

The Pointerettes held a 61-57 lead, as much of a margin as they’d enjoyed the whole game. But, sparked by Alana Morris, the Lady Hornets opened the final period with a 17-0 blitz to take over the game. With Morris scoring 11 of her 20 points in the final eight minutes, Bryant claimed an 81-73 victory, its second in as many 7A-Central Conference games to date.

“We out-scored them 25-10 in the fourth quarter and that’s the ballgame,” acknowledged Lady Hornets head coach Blake Condley. “That’s where, I felt, our conditioning was key — not only physically but mentally, making sure that, late in the game, we could still push, still get up and down the floor.”

The 81 points was the most by a Lady Hornets team in one game since Nov. 28, 1997, when Bryant won a game at a tournament in Lovelady, Texas, 96-35, over Chester, Texas.

“I thought our depth — girls coming off the bench and giving us good minutes — was big,” Condley emphasized. “Shanika Johnson came in and had double figures off the bench tonight. Friday night (at Mount St. Mary’s), Haley Montgomery had double figures coming in off the bench. We’ve got girls that essentially could be starters, coming off the bench and giving us good minutes, giving us good point production, playing good defense. That makes it a good team effort. We’re playing well together right now.”

The Lady Hornets improved to 11-2 overall with their 2-0 mark in the league tying them with North Little Rock and Cabot atop the standings going into a trip to Russellville on Friday, Jan. 16.