By Rob Patrick
Photos by Kevin Nagle
The good news is that, in their fourth shot at the Benton Lady Panthers, the Bryant Lady Hornets[more] freshman team held their rivals to just 28 points. That’s the lowest total the Lady Panthers have had in the four meetings.
The not-so-good news is that the Lady Hornets’ offensive struggles continued and a 28-11 loss was the resultas Benton completed a four-game sweep of the Lady Hornets.
The Lady Panthers muscled their way to 13 offensive rebounds and used an aggressive trapping defense to force 20 turnovers which helped make up for 28 percent shooting from the floor (10 of 36). It also helped limit Bryant to just 19 field goal attempts.
“I thought defensively we played as we have all year,” acknowledged Lady Hornets head coach Nathan Castaldi. “We gave up a lot of easy buckets off second shots and turnovers that led to them scoring one on zero but, defensively, we made them work for everything they got. So I was very pleased with our defensive effort.”
It was the fourth consecutive game that the Lady Hornets have been unable to reach 20 points.
“We work on it every day,” Castaldi said of the offense. “We’re trying to get better. I thought the second half, we did a good job of getting ourselves in position to score better we just weren’t able to finish.”
Although it’s not always noted, strength plays an important role in basketball. It obviously comes into play when positioning for rebounds and actually controlling the caroms is concerned. But it also helps a player fend off ball-hawking defenders trying to take the ball away and, when shooting, it helps when a player can go up strong and not be easily knocked off balance on a shot.
Benton’s Braylee Landreth was a prime example offensively with her strong play inside on the way to a game-high 10 points. On the boards, Ashley Dintleman secured a game-high seven rebounds including five on the offensive end for the Lady Panthers.
“(Landreth) is as good a post player as we’ll play all year,” Castaldi stated. “She creates some match-up problems. I thought we still did a pretty good job but you know she’s going to score.”
Benton scored the first 5 points of the game before Bryant’s Taylor Lindberg hit a 10-foot jumper. That, however, was the Lady Hornets’ lone score in the first quarter. Benton was able to build a 10-2 lead.
It was 11-2 before Jayla Anderson’s short jumper added to Bryant’s total. Sparked by a three-point play by Dintleman and a steal and layup by Landreth, Benton pushed the margin out to 17-4 before Lindberg beat the buzzer with a stickback to make it an 11-point difference at intermission.
Lindberg wound up leading the Lady Hornets with 6 points in the game. Her layup off a nice feed from Nikki Clay to start the scoring in the second half had the Lady Hornets within 17-8.
After a timeout, however, Benton put together an 8-0 stretch over a full quarter, gradually pulling away.
As it turned out, Lindberg’s opening bucket was the lone field goal of the second half for the Lady Hornets who added free throws by Clay and Anderson in the late stages of the game to set the final score.
The Lady Panthers improved to 3-0 in league play. The Lady Hornets are 0-2.
Bryant will travel to Lake Hamilton for its next game on Thursday, Jan. 19.
LADY PANTHERS 28, LADY HORNETS 11
Score by quarters
Benton 10 7 8 3 — 28
BRYANT 2 4 2 3 — 11
LADY PANTHERS 28
Meaders 0-5 0-2 2, Mayo 2-10 4-6 8, Chumley 0-0 0-0 0, Dintleman 3-4 2-3 8, Landreth 4-6 2-4 10, Bono 0-0 0-2 0, Doggett 0-1 0-0 0, Reynolds 1-3 0-0 2, Martin 0-0 0-0 0, Malone 0-1 0-0 0, K.Farrow 0-2 0-0 0, Huffington 0-2 0-0 0, Capel 0-1 0-0 0, D. Farrow 0-1 0-0 0. Totals 10-36 8-17 28.
LADY HORNETS 11
Clay 0-4 2-2 2, Anderson 1-3 1-4 3, Davidson 0-1 0-0 0, Lindberg 3-7 0-0 6, Curry 0-2 0-0 0, Solinger 0-0 0-0 0, Powers 0-0 0-0 0, Huffman 0-1 0-1 0, Gray 0-1 0-0 0, Earls 0-0 0-0 0, Blair 0-0 0-0 0, Jamison 0-0 0-0 0, Barber 0-0 0-0 0. Totals 4-19 3-7 11.
Three-point field goals: Bryant 0-1 (Clay 0-1), Benton 0-12 (Meaders 0-4, Mayo 0-2, K.Farrow 0-2, Huffington 0-2, Doggett 0-1, Reynolds 0-1). Rebounds: Bryant 22 (Anderson 5), Benton 25 (Dintleman 7). Turnovers: Bryant 20, Benton 7. Team fouls: Bryant 12, Benton 12.
