LITTLE ROCK — Though the Little Rock Catholic Rockets held leads of 3-0 and 4-1 in the second half, the Bryant Hornets rallied to make them sweat it out at the end. The Rockets managed to hold on for a 4-3 victory in the 7A/6A-Central Conference showdown between Class 7A rivals at Catholic High School.
The two teams came in tied at 1-2 against 7A foes in the conference. The Rockets caught an early spark and forged a 2-0 lead by halftime.
“We didn’t look very good the first half,” said Hornets coach Jason Hay. “Catholic came out and scored in the first 10 seconds of the second half and we were down 3-0. It would’ve been easy to quit at that point but the kids showed some guts to get back in it.”
Luis Lara answered the Rockets’ goal to open the second half in pretty short order. Just over six minutes in, he found the range off an assist from Jhorman Cruz.
Catholic scored again in response and it stayed 4-1 until Martin Ramierez drilled a goal off a feed from Cruz as the Hornets’ closing frenzy got going.
Just over a minute later, Ramierez returned the favor as Cruz scored to make it 4-3 going into the last nine minutes.
“We fought back, scored two and had chances to get another but couldn’t get one to fall,” Hay noted.
Bryant, now 11-5 overall, takes a break from conference action on Tuesday, April 26, when Pulaski Academy visits. Their next league contest is a big one, on Friday, April 29, against first-place Conway. When the two teams played at Conway on April 5, they battled to a scoreless tie that Conway won on penalty kicks in a shootout.
