Lady Hornets advance to Joe T. title game by burying Lady Badgers
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
LITTLE ROCK — With 1:28 left to play in the first quarter, it looked like the Bryant Lady Hornets had a game on their hands. The Arkadelphia Lady Badgers were hanging around and Ronnicka Jones had just scored to trim the Bryant lead to 14-10.
Moments later, Lady Hornets’ sophomore Logan Davis drilled a 12-foot jumper and, after[more] Arkadelphia’s Jordan Cooper misfired on a 3-point try, Davis flushed one from beyond the arc to make it 19-10.
With :26.6 left in the opening quarter, Brooke Pritchard failed to get the front end of a one-and-one to drop and, just before the buzzer ending the quarter, Bryant’s London Abernathy popped a trey to give her team a double-digit lead that would eventually explode to 32 by the end of the half.
Davis went on to score a season-high 18 points off the bench, converting 8 of 10 shots from the field and McKenzie Adams added 20 points, all in the first half, including 16 in the second quarter, as the Lady Hornets buried the Lady Badgers, 66-32 despite scoring just 1 point in the fourth quarter.
The win lifted Bryant into the championship game of the venerable old Joe T. Tournament, which is in its 65th year at Pulaski Robinson. The Lady Hornets take on Camden Fairview at 7:30 p.m., tonight in a bid to capture their second tournament crown of the season so far.
All 16 Lady Hornets played and 10 of them contributed to the scoring. They forced 28 turnovers, 25 of them in the first three quarters.
The game was officiated tightly. The two teams combined to commit 47 fouls and shot 54 free throws.
“We talked about whenever we have girls come over when they have two fouls, I’ve told them, depending on how the game’s going, I don’t want to tell them they’re done until the second half just because they have two fouls,” commented Lady Hornets coach Blake Condley. “I want them to learn how to play through that. You know, (senior) Abbi (Stearns) picked up two in the first quarter and I said, ‘Hey, you’re going back. You can play as long as you stay (at two fouls). If you get three, I’ve got to get you out but play as long as you can.’
“The same thing with Kiara (Moore) and Brea (Blundell) when I sent them back in there,” he added. “And they did a good job. They adjusted well and that’s one of the things I’ve told them we’ve got to learn. How’s the game being officiated? And we adjust to it. We can’t change it. We’ve got to make differences in what we’re doing. We’ve got to make the changes. So I was proud of that.”
Moore wound up with 3 points for Bryant but, in just the first quarter, she had three steals and three assists. To open the second period, she made her fourth steal and fed Davis for a layup to make it 24-10.
Jones grabbed an offensive rebound and scored for Arkadelphia and the Lady Badgers had a chance to follow up only to have Moore force a held ball that went Bryant’s way. Abernathy’s 3-point attempt rimmed out but she and Moore forced another turnover that led to a three-point play by Adams.
Arkadelphia’s Kaitlyn Reid hit a free throw but Davis trumped that with her second troika to pump the lead up to 30-13.
Condley praised the play of Davis and added, “Tonight, I thought our passing was good. We made good open-floor passes. We hit girls in stride. We’re getting the ball to our teammates in a place where they can score. That’s just going to help us be a better team down the road, balanced scoring, distributing the ball around.”
The teams traded free throws for awhile. With 2:46 left, Reid hit a pair to make it 37-19. Bryant then closed out the half with a 14-0 run. Blundell scored inside, Adams hit two free throws then drained a trey. Abernathy made a steal and layup then Adams followed suit. A steal by Strearns led to a free throw by Moore. With :08.4 showing, Adams finished off the blitz with a pair from the line to make it 51-19.
The starters would not play in the second half but the second group, led by Davis initially, continued the onslaught in the third quarter. A three-point play by Jones started the half but Brittney Ball fed Davis for a layup then Callie Hogancamp knocked down a 3. A driving jumper in the lane by Davis and, later, her offensive-rebound bucket made it 60-22.
The third group took over after that. It was 60-26 before Rochelle Aguilar scored 5 straight points for Bryant. She knocked down a 15-foot jumper then grabbed a carom on a teammate’s miss and scored. A little later, she added a free throw.
It was 65-29 going into the fourth quarter and the “mercy rule” went into effect. Arkadephia was only able to add a 3 by Kristin Conzel and Bryant’s lone point came on a free throw by Ball.
The Lady Hornets improved to 7-0 with the victory.
“I feel like our focus is good,” Condley commented. “We’re talking about, here’s our game plan, here’s what we want to do and the girls are coming in focused to execute that, worrying about what the Lady Hornets are doing rather than what anybody else is doing, making sure that our quality of play is good.”
LADY HORNETS 66, LADY BADGERS 32
Score by quarters
Arkadelphia 10 9 10 3 — 32
BRYANT 22 29 14 1 — 66
LADY BADGERS 32
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Reid 0-0 3-4 0-1 1 2 3
Wright 0-0 1-2 0-2 2 3 1
Cooper 4-10 0-1 1-3 4 4 9
Brech 1-3 1-3 3-2 5 4 3
Jones 3-6 3-4 2-4 6 2 9
Whittle 0-1 1-3 2-1 3 4 1
Pritchard 0-2 3-7 0-1 1 3 3
Jackson 0-0 0-0 1-1 2 1 0
Crawford 0-1 0-0 0-1 1 0 0
Conzel 1-4 0-0 0-1 1 0 3
Williams 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Britt 0-0 0-2 0-2 2 0 0
Austin 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Team 4-1 5
Totals 9-27 12-26 13-20 33 25 32
LADY HORNETS 66
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Moore 1-3 1-2 0-1 1 2 3
Adams 5-9 9-9 1-0 1 1 20
Abernathy 3-7 0-0 1-1 2 1 7
Stearns 0-1 2-4 3-3 6 2 2
Blundell 2-4 1-2 1-1 2 2 5
Meyer 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0
Davis 8-10 0-0 2-0 2 1 18
Davidson 0-1 2-4 0-3 3 1 2
Hogancamp 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 2 3
Murphy 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Aguilar 2-2 1-2 1-1 2 3 5
Buck 0-2 0-0 0-2 2 1 0
Rice 0-3 0-0 0-0 0 3 0
Ball 0-0 1-3 0-2 2 1 1
Choate 0-1 0-0 0-4 4 1 0
Scarlett 0-1 0-2 0-0 0 0 0
Team 1-0 1
Totals 22-46 17-28 10-18 28 22 66
Three-point field goals: Bryant 5-13 (Davis 2-4, Adams 1-3, Abernathy 1-3, Hogancamp 1-1, Moore 0-1, Buck 0-1), Arkadelphia 2-12 (Cooper 1-5, Conzel 1-4, Pritchard 0-1, Jones 0-1, Austin 0-1). Turnovers: Bryant 11, Arkadelphia 28.
