Bryant girls rack up season-high 81 points in win over Cabot
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).
By Rob Patrick
On a night when the undefeated Overall State champion Bryant Lady Hornets of 1988-89 were honored, the 2009-10 version did its best imitation with an offensive explosion that produced a season-high point total in an 81-65 victory over the Cabot Lady Panthers.
Five Bryant players scored in double figures led by Shanika Johnson who rediscovered her stroke from 3-point range after an off-night at Conway on Tuesday, Jan. 19. She pumped in five 3’s on the way to 17 points.
In fact, several of the Lady Hornets got back in the shooting groove after slumping in the 56-46 loss at Conway in which only Kenzee Calley shot well. Calley followed up her 17-point performance against Conway with 15 against Cabot. Alana Morris also had 15 while Abbi Stearns and Brooke Parish contributed 10 apiece.[more]
The win improved the Lady Hornets to 16-2 overall this season. They’re 4-1 in the 7A-Central Conference, alone in second place after Van Buren upset Conway and North Little Rock dismissed Little Rock Central Friday night. The Lady Hornets face a showdown with 19-0 North Little Rock, the top-ranked team in the state and the league, on Tuesday, Jan. 26, before hosting Central on Friday in a week that will be crucial to their hopes of a conference championship.
Against Cabot, as a team, the Lady Hornets hit 52 percent from the field (22 of 42) including 7 of 14 from 3-point range. Plus, they converted 30 of 37 free throws including their first 12 before a miss to start the fourth quarter.
In other words, they followed up one of their worst shooting nights with one of their best.
Bryant head coach Blake Condley agreed that so much of a team’s success is as basic as hitting shots.
“That’s the ultimate difference, especially from Tuesday night to tonight,” he noted. “We hit some shots so we could get into our press. And not that we forced a lot of steals but just for us to be getting that pressure and getting the game to go a little quicker. It gets us into a rhythm. And with five girls in double figures tonight, it’s not just one girl getting into rhythm, we as a team get into that rhythm. We’re getting up and down the floor and I just feel like it helps us to play so much better.”
Actually, the Lady Panthers led for much of the first half. They were up 13-12 at the end of the first quarter. They led by as much as 6 in the second quarter before Bryant, sparked by Johnson’s first triple, surged into the lead. After Cabot’s Brooke Taylor hit a layup, Morris dazzled with a reverse layup at the other end.
Taylor missed a 3-point try and Morris kicked out to Johnson for another 3 that tied the game at 24.
Parish and Johnson combined to force a turnover and Morris cashed it in with a drive to the rack that gave Bryant the lead.
Cabot took a timeout at that point and, when play resumed, Sarah Moore was fouled. Moore, who was 9 of 11 from the line during the game on her way to a team-high 17 points, missed the front end at that moment and, after a flurry of turnovers, Parish grabbed the carom off a Cabot miss and was fouled. Her free throws gave the Lady Hornets their largest lead of the first half, 28-24.
Stephenie Odom answered for Cabot only to have Parish swish a 12-footer. Odom scored again off the offensive glass but Morris found Parish on the baseline for a jumper that had the Lady Hornets up 32-28.
Moore, however, was fouled with :02 left and her free throws had Cabot within 32-30.
Cabot stayed close for a while in the third quarter but Morris continued to take control of the game though she had just 4 points in the third quarter.
“She has capabilities to do that,” Condley said of Morris. “She can lock people up defensively as well as anybody I’ve ever seen. She can pass as well as anybody I’ve ever seen. She can rebound as good as anybody I’ve ever seen. When she decides to do it, she can take a game over. And she did that tonight. We’ve seen flashes of that. I’m just hoping we continue to mature these next few weeks and she realizes how much she can take a game over and will do that for us consistently.”
Cabot was still within 3, 39-36, at the 5:47 mark of the third quarter. But Calley, with her majestic, high-arcing shot, converted a pair of free throws then Parish made a steal that led to another troika for Johnson.
The Lady Hornets forced another turnover and Johnson misfired from 3-point range. The carom, however, was saved in by Parish off a Cabot defender and, on the subsequent inbounds play, Johnson got another open look and dropped another bomb, producing the first double-digit lead of the game, 47-36.
A scintillating drive by Morris added to the lead before Cabot’s Melissa Wolff ended her team’s drought.
After Morris grabbed an offensive rebound and drove for another score, Moore connected on back-to-back shots to get her team within 51-42 only to have Haley Montgomery drained a 3 from the left corner.
Amber Rock’s layup made it a 10-point game before Johnson rained down her third 3 of the quarter and Calley, taking a pass from Parish, flushed a 15-footer to make it 59-44 going into the fourth quarter.
“We talked about a few adjustments,” Condley said of the Lady Hornets’ halftime. “We made a couple of adjustments defensively. But I think sometimes these girls just take a little bit to see what’s working, to see how they need to guard people and — not that we don’t take scouting reports and look at them — they like to get their own assessments. And once they see things that are working, once they get a feel for the game, I just feel like we put ourselves in a good position to make runs on people.”
Cabot, which was 22 of 29 from the free-throw line, used six of them to help get back within 9 at 61-52 early in the final period. But Parish, who had seven rebounds (second to Morris’ nine) was fouled after grabbing an offensive board and converted twice at the line.
The lead was never less than double-digits after that. Taylor hit a free throw but Bryant responded with a 10-2 run to put the game out of reach. Calley and Stearns hit free throws during that stretch. Johnson scored off an assist by Morris, who had eight of them, then, working a nice give and go with Calley, Morris added a layup to make it 71-53 with 3:50 left to play.
Moore, who had 10 rebounds including nine on the offensive end, grabbed a teammate’s miss and was fouled. She converted both tosses but Morris and Calley each hit one in response to make it 73-55 with three minutes to go.
After Rock hit two from the line, the Lady Hornets spread the floor and made the Lady Panthers chase and foul. Four free throws by Hannah Goshien bumped the margin to 20 and, soon thereafter, Condley was emptying his bench.
In the final minute, Taylor Neal and Brittney Ball added free throws to set the final score.
LADY HORNETS 81, LADY PANTHERS 65
Score by quarters
Cabot 13 17 14 21 — 65
BRYANT 12 20 27 22 — 81
LADY PANTHERS (8-10, 1-4) 65
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Taylor 3-13 7-8 1-0 1 5 13
Rock 4-9 2-2 0-1 1 2 13
Moore 4-9 9-11 9-1 10 2 17
Wolff 3-8 3-4 5-2 7 5 9
S.Odom 2-3 0-2 2-1 3 3 4
Thomas 0-3 0-0 1-2 3 2 0
Russell 2-4 0-0 0-2 2 0 4
Wacker 1-4 0-0 1-1 2 2 2
M.Odom 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Grunwald 0-0 0-0 0-2 2 1 0
Boyett 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Fowler 1-1 1-2 2-0 2 0 3
Team 0-2 2
Total 20-56 22-29 21-14 35 23 65
LADY HORNETS (16-2, 4-1) 81
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Montgomery 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 4 3
Goshien 1-5 4-6 2-1 3 0 7
Calley 4-9 7-7 1-1 2 2 15
Stearns 1-1 8-8 0-4 4 3 10
Morris 6-7 3-4 1-8 9 3 15
Johnson 6-13 0-0 1-3 4 4 17
Parish 3-5 4-4 5-2 7 3 10
Neal 0-0 2-4 0-0 0 1 2
Lee 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Abernathy 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Sory 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Ball 0-0 2-4 0-1 1 0 2
Barker 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Hogancamp 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Team 0-0 0
Total 22-42 30-37 10-20 30 21 81
Three-point field goals: Cabot 3-10 (Rock 3-6, Taylor 0-2, Wolff 0-1, M.Odom 0-1), Bryant 7-14 (Johnson 5-9, Goshien 1-4, Montgomery 1-1). Turnovers: Cabot 15, Bryant 18.
