Soccer teams open with wins
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).
The Bryant High School soccer teams made a successful debut to the 2007 season on Monday, Feb. 26, and it was that much sweeter because it came against their rivals from Benton.
The Lady Hornets earned a 5-2 win that may have been more lopsided than the score might indicate. The Hornets, meanwhile, prevailed 6-1. Bryant’s junior varsity boys were successful as well, with a 4-1 win.
On Friday, March 2, Bryant opened 7A-Central Conference play against North Little Rock, however, and the boys suffered a tough 2-1 loss while the girls absorbed a 4-1 setback.
In the opener, the Hornets held Benton scoreless until the last 15 minutes. It was 6-0 by then. Sophomore Austin Bradley put in the first goal of the year then senior Gueorgui Tchamkoriyski followed up quickly. Bradley put a third goal on a header off a corner kick. Fifteen minutes in, the Hornets had jumped up 3-0.
A header off Ryan Stuckey off another corner kick at the end of the first period upped the advantage to 4-0.
In the second half, Stuckey got his second goal on a rebound off an indirect kick. Aaron Miller’s breakaway goal made it 6-0.
“The kids played well,” commented Hornets head coach Kenny Horn.
In the girls game, it was, according to Lady Hornets head coach Doug Maxwell, “a night of missed opportunities.”
He noted that his team attempted a whopping 34 shots compared to just six for Benton.
“We struggled with being able to find the back of the net,” he said. “Our girls played extremely hard and dominated the time of possession, but were unable to really put the game away until about 18 minutes left in the second half.”
“Benton scored first with a goal off a misplay by our keeper about two minutes in,” recalled Maxwell.
Bryant tied the score off of a penalty kick by Brittany Starrett then Morgan Hart put the Lady Hornets ahead with about 15 minutes to go in the first half.
Lori William scored a goal 10 minutes into the second half off of an assist by Hart to make it 3-1. Benton countered to make it 3-2 but Bryant added two more goals, one on a penalty kick by Hart and another by Lori Williams to set the final score.
Against North Little Rock, the Hornets fell behind 1-0 in the first half.
“It was 0-0 for awhile then our goalie took a chance and kind of got hung out on a ball, just a head-on, and the guy got by him and scored,” Horn recounted.
It stayed that way until there was about eight minutes left.
“They fouled us in the box and Gueorgui got a penalty kick. He made it to tie it at 1,” Horn continued.
But, on a free kick with less than five minutes left, North Little Rock re-gained the advantage.
“It just got bundled up up there and I don’t think anybody hit it in, it just bounced off somebody,” Horn said.
“We got several more shots on the goal,” he added, “we just couldn’t get a break on one. I think it could’ve gone either way. If the ball bounces a little differently a couple of times, we might’ve won 2-1 or 1-0.
“The kids played well all the way up to the end,” the coach concluded. “All you can ask for is for them to compete and that’s what they did.”
Regarding the girls game, Maxwell said, “We played really timid. I think the weather — the wind was a concern for us going in. It was gusting pretty hard in pregame with gusts up to about 30 miles per hour. It was really carrying. Mentally, we weren’t ready for that.”
And it didn’t help that the Lady Hornets were playing into that cold north wind in the first half.
“We stepped back,” said Maxwell. “We weren’t going first to the ball, we weren’t playing a lot of balls in the air. (North Little Rock) used the wind to their advantage. They were able to send some long balls up over the top of us and got up on us 3-0 in the first half.
”We just weren’t nearly as aggressive as we were against Benton,” he emphasized. “We really struggled to get our offense going.”
It was 4-0 before Hart got the Lady Hornets on the board with about nine minutes left in the match.
“On the plus side, we only gave up the one goal in the second half,” Maxwell assessed. “I thought we did a good job of kind of stepping up and dominating play but we just weren’t able to capitalize on anything in the second half. I think we were a little disheartened by the first half.”
It was the Lady Hornets’ second game of the season and North Little Rock’s sixth, Maxwell noted.
“That was a factor,” he said. “I’m still proud of the way we played. We’ve got a good group that, as they come together and get a little more experience, will definitely be a force to reckon with. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case Friday night.”
The Lady Hornets were set for a busy week ahead, playing at Pulaski Academy on Monday, March 5, hosting conference rival Little Rock Central on Tuesday, then visiting Mount St. Mary’s on Friday. The boys also play Central at home on Tuesday then at Little Rock Catholic.
