Juniors Parris Atkins and Jordan Hancock combined for 27 points in three quarters of play and the Bryant Lady Hornets forced 20 turnovers on the way to a 60-20 victory over the White Hall Lady Bulldogs in a preseason scrimmage game at Hornet Arena on Tuesday night.
Both teams had players unavailable because of quarantine after being exposed peripherally to someone with Covid-19.
Atkins scored 16 points and Hancock had 11. Sophomore Emileigh Muse drained a trio of 3-pointers for 9 points and senior Lauryn Taylor came off the bench for 8 points and a team-high seven rebounds.
Bryant scored the first 12 points of the game and, after White Hall’s Camille Wallace broke the ice with a free throw, the Lady Hornets put together a 10-0 run.
The Lady Bulldogs could never quite recover.
“I thought it was good,” said Lady Hornets coach Brad Matthews. “I thought our energy was good, our defensive movement was good. I thought, off the ball, our defense was really good, especially early. The third quarter, it got a little lax but the first half, defensively, I thought we were really active, kind of anticipating what we were supposed to do, not staring at the ball. That was good.
“Offensively, we executed pretty well for the first game and having so many new kids,” he added. “Playing together in practice is a little bit different than playing together in a game. It seemed like we had a high number of assists. So, we shared the ball well. When they went zone, I thought we made the extra pass. Then, we were able to get out in transition a little bit. That’s good. We need those baskets.”
Matthews played 14 players and nine of them added to the scoring. Freshman Brilynn Findley had 6. Sophomore Lauren Lane added 4 with Jaelyn Allen, Lyniyae Johnson and Jayla Knight picking up 2 apiece.
While forcing 20 turnovers, the Lady Hornets committed just two.
They led 18-1 at the end of the first quarter then 39-8 by the end of the half. It was 52-14 going into the fourth quarter.
“We played three different kinds of defenses to get it on film,” said Matthews. “We’ll watch the film tonight and kind of see what our mistakes are. We’ve got a week until we play at Searcy. We’ll have five good days of practice.”
The game at Searcy is actually Thursday, Nov. 19.
