By Rob Patrick

BRYANT, AR — In a rugged game that included a whopping 52 fouls — and could’ve had more — the Conway White Wampus Kittens broke out to a 12-0 start and held off an emotional Bryant Hornets freshman effort for a 60-52 win at the Bryant Middle School gym on Monday night.

Conway’s Tim Boyd drained four 3-pointers and led the slash and dash Kittens with 27 points. Boyd was one of a group of four guards that accounted for 55 of their team’s points. DeSean Turner had 11 and Brandon Cox 10 with Dominic Taylor hitting a pair of 3’s on his way to 7 points. They were also a major reason the Hornets suffered 20 turnovers.

Nine of the 10 players for the Hornets contributed to the scoring with Aaron Bell leading with 12 and Leon Neale adding 11. Zach Cambron had 8, Riley Hall 7 and Luke Rayburn and Marcus Wilson 5 each.

Though, incredibly, neither team had a player foul out, each was assessed 26 fouls, resulting in 66 free throw attempts between them. The Kittens were 21 of 34, the Hornets 19 of 32.

By Rob Patrick

At the end of the first quarter in their game against the Sheridan Freshman Stingers on Thursday night, the Bryant Hornets freshman team was struggling. They hit just 1 of 11 shots from the field, turned the ball over four times and made a free throw in two tries.

They found themselves trailing the visiting Stingers, 6-3.

But the second quarter was completely different. Picking it up on the defensive end and extending their defense, the Hornets went on a 12-0 run that extended to an 18-2 second quarter on their way to a 38-19 win.

CONWAY — Everyone played and nine different players contributed to the scoring as the Bryant Hornets freshman team opened play in the South Division of the Central Arkansas Junior High Conference with a 47-8 drubbing of a short-handed Conway Blue Wampus Kittens team on Monday night.

Bryant built a 16-4 lead by the end of the first quarter and held a 28-6 advantage at the half. The Hornets outscored the Kittens 11-0 in the third quarter.

GREENBRIER — The Bryant Hornets freshman team held the Greenbrier Junior Panthers without a field goal for the last 38 seconds of the first quarter, the entire second quarter, the entire third quarter and the first 1:30 of the fourth quarter.

Though they didn’t take big advantage of that defense in the second period, the third quarter proved to be too much for the Panthers to overcome as the Hornets forged a 33-21 win.

Bryant led by as much as 15 along the way as the team bounced back from its first loss of the season to North Little Rock in the finals of the Bryant Invitational on Saturday. Now 4-1, the Hornets will open play in the South Division of the Central Arkansas Junior High Conference on Monday, Nov. 30, at Conway Blue.

By Rob Patrick

Both the Bryant Hornets and the North Little Rock Charging Wildcats freshman basketball teams had been scoring in the 40’s and 50’s so far this season while posting unbeaten records. But when they met each other in the championship round of the annual Bryant Invitational Tournament on Thursday, such was not the case.

Neither team fared well offensively when it got down to a halfcourt game, but North Little Rock managed just a few more layups off the running game and grind out a 30-22 win.

By Rob Patrick

Fourteen Bryant Hornets freshmen played and 12 of them contributed to the scoring as they buried the Texarkana Razorbacks, 50-22, in the semifinals of the Bryant Invitational Tournament on Tuesday.

The Hornets will play for the championship against North Little Rock Thursday at 8:20 p.m.

Bryant broke out to a 9-0 lead on the Razorbacks. The run included a pair of buckets off the offensive glass by Leon Neale, a 3-pointer by Riley Hall and a stickback by Aaron Bell.

Hall would go on to score a game-high 10 points, Neale finished with 8. Each collected five rebounds to lead the team.

The Hornets led 14-4 at the end of the quarter which was punctuated by Marcus Wilson’s deep buzzer-beating trey.

But when Texarkana answered with a 3 to start the second quarter the lead was just 7. And the Hogs got three chances to get closer. But two turnovers and two missed free throws cost them.

By Rob Patrick

Guard Luke Rayburn wasn’t available for his team’s season opener against the Morrilton Devil Pups. Teammate Aaron Bell stepped in at the point for him, however, and slashed and dashed to a game-high 22 points in the team’s 47-34 win.

On Monday, Rayburn was in the starting lineup with Bell and the duo combined to help the Bryant Hornets freshman team get off to a quick start that sparked a 46-29 win over the Lake Hamilton Junior Wolves.

The win put the Hornets in the semifinals of the annual Bryant Invitational Tournament. They’ll take on Texarkana tonight at 6:10.

Rayburn wound up with a game-high 12 points in the victory, leading nine different Hornets that contributed to the total. Riley Hall finished with 7. Bell and Scott Workman added 6 each.

Leon Neale made a steal and layup to get the game started for Bryant. Moments later, Bell drove to the rack for his first bucket and, after making a steal, Rayburn banked in a jay to make it 6-0.

By Rob Patrick

Basketball gets under way in Bryant tonight when the freshman teams and the Bryant White girls eighth grade teams host their respective counterparts from Morrilton at the middle school gym starting at 5 p.m.

Expectations are high for the freshman girls with the influx of players from the eighth grade team which went undefeated last year.