Bryant girls ease past North Little Rock in first home match
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 continue 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).
Shelby Gartrell scored two goals and the Bryant Lady Hornets limited the North Little Rock Lady Charging Wildcats to just one desperate shot in a 2-0 win on Thursday at Bryant Stadium.
Gartell’s first goal came at the 18-minute mark of the first half off an assist by Kendall Selig.
The 1-0 lead held through halftime. With about 10 minutes left to play, the Lady Hornets added the second goal.
“Shelby got a breakaway and she got fouled in the box,” recalled Lady Hornets coach Julie Long. “The keeper just took her out. So Shelby took a PK and made it.”
The win came on the heels of a 1-0 win over Mount St. Mary on Tuesday.
“Overall, I was really pleased with how we played,” Long said. :We played better than we did against Mount. You could kind of tell we got some first-game jitters out.
“We moved the ball really, really well but, obviously, we couldn’t finish,” she continued. “That was our big thing. We just shot the ball over, shot the ball wide. We shot the ball everywhere but the back of the net except for twice.
“The good thing, on the flipside, was they only shot the ball once and it wasn’t even on goal,” she noted. “They didn’t have any shots on goal. That’s huge.
“Overall, we played really, really well. We just need to finish better.”
The Lady Hornets return to action in a tournament at Cabot on Saturday. They’ll open play at 10:20 a.m., against longtime nemesis Conway.
