After win over Cabot, Lady Hornets face Mount St. Mary for trip to State finals
EDITOR’S NOTE: In this time of COVID-19, with no sports action, BryantDaily.com will be posting 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).
CABOT — Back on Feb. 26, the Bryant Lady Hornets and Mount St. Mary Belles opened the[more] 2013 soccer season with a match at Little Rock Catholic’s new field. On Saturday, May 11, at 2 p.m., the two teams will meet again, this time at Cabot High School, and for one of them, it’ll close out the 2013 soccer season.
For the other, it’s on to the Class 7A State Tournament championship at Razorback Field on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville next Friday at 6 p.m., where they’ll face the winner of the other semifinal match between Bentonville and Fort Smith Southside.
Bryant and Mount both won on Friday by 3-0 scores. The Belles ousted Fayetteville, while the Lady Hornets eliminated Cabot.
The first half was scoreless in the Bryant-Cabot match. The second half was barely a two minutes old though when Rori Whittaker broke the ice for the Lady Hornets off a corner kick from Lexie Balisterri.
“I felt like we played better in the first half,” said Bryant coach Julie Long. “We possessed the ball and moved the ball pretty well the first half. We played spastic for a little bit. You could tell we were getting the nerves out but, for the most part, I felt like they came out with the intensity they needed to.
“Hopefully, it’ll be better tomorrow,” she added. “We’re going to have to play better to beat Mount.
“The effort was there the entire game,” the coach asserted. “They never let down. They worked hard. You could tell that they really wanted it.”
At 25:04, Anna Lowery added an unassisted goal and, to wrap up the scoring with 8:25 left, the twin connection struck with Shelby Gartrell scored off a pass from Bailey Gartrell.
“It was pretty much perfect and Shelby finished it well,” Long said.
“Our defense played really, really well,” she added. “(Cabot) had about two true chances at scoring. Our defense was pretty rock solid all night. I was proud of that.”
The Lady Hornets improved to 19-2-1 on the season with the victory. It was their fourth straight shutout, their 16th of the season and their sixth consecutive win.
