Lady Hornets earn victory in conference opener; JV stays unbeaten
EDITOR’S NOTE: Because the look back at each day in Bryant athletic history has been so favorably received during the time when there was no sports during the COVID-19 shutdown, BryantDaily.com will continueposting past stories of Bryant athletics either posted on BryantDaily.com (from 2009 to the present) or published in the Bryant Times (from 1998 to 2008).
The Bryant Lady Hornets successfully opened play in the 7A/6A-Central Conference on Thursday by dismissing the Little Rock Central Lady Tigers, 25-13, 25-14, 23-25, 25-20 as 10 different players recorded kills.
In a JV match, Bryant swept 25-6, 25-18 to improve to 3-0 this season.
The varsity is now 2-1 overall, 1-0 in league play. The Lady Hornets return to conference action at Mount St. Mary on Tuesday, Sept. 6.
“Those are positive numbers,” said Bryant head coach Beth Solomon, “and a good start to the season.
“I’m happy with the win tonight,” she added. “I feel like we had yet another lull in game three, which led to us having to compete in a fourth game. We should have won in three. It almost seemed as if we got comfortable and stopped playing as hard. We made some stupid decisions and silly errors.
“Central also decided to pick it up and start playing harder in game three and I don’t think that we were ready for it,” the coach said. “The girls played hard in game four and pulled off the win.”
Brooke Howell, coming off a 16-kill performance against Benton on Tuesday, came back with 11 to lead the team against Central. Alyssa Anderson had 10 and Brianna White eight to go with three solo blocks and an assisted block. McKenzie Rice had six kills.
Setter Hannah Rice had a busy night with 33 assists and 11 digs.
Howell was also good on 94 percent of her serves including a pair of aces. Anderson had two as well. Lauren Reed served at 93 percent and Taylor West at 92 percent as the Lady Hornets, altogether, had a good night in service, good 89 percent of the time.
In the JV match, Aubree Allen led with five kills. Carley Choate had four to go with five aces out of 12 serves. Becka Shaddon served up three aces and Britten Hays two.
Caylin Choate led with 15 digs while older sister Carley finished with a team high nine assists.
“They had a great showing,” declared Solomon in regard to the junior varsity. “I’m very proud of the way that they got the night started off for us.”
