By Aaron Shuttleworth
LITTLE ROCK — It was a hard night for the Bryant Lady Hornets at Little Rock Central on Thursday. Their season has its first blemish.
In the first 11 minutes of the game, two balls got pass the keeper Kaitlyn Miller and the Lady Hornet defense. The first score came in at 35:07 remaining in the half and the second with 29:34. But after that, the girls got in rhythm and started keeping up with their assignments.[more]
Defenders Tarra Hendricks and Lyndsay Brazil hustled every time the ball was near them. Hendricks has tremendous speed and ball control and Brazil knows how to break up a play. Another player that showed a lot of talent was Madison Land. She has very good speed and when out in the open is a threat against the opposing team.
With 15:03 left in the first half, Hendricks set up for a corner kick. As she boomed the ball into the box, Erica Selig was there for the header into the goal. Cutting the score to 2-1, with halftime coming up, that is just what the girls needed to get their heads back together.
"It was the best goal we've had all season,” stated Lady Hornets coach Julie Long. “It was beautiful. I couldn't have asked for a better goal. We worked on corner kicks all week during practice."
There were 12 shots taken against the Lady Tigers goal. But unfortunately, four minutes into the second half, the third Lady Tiger goal crossed into the net.
But after that Miller went on a seven-save run. She had a total of 12 saves through the course of the game.
Coach Long said, “The second half I feel we controlled more, it just happened they got that goal off … we played harder. Our play was better, we just let them control us instead of us controlling them."
“It’s not the way to start the conference opener,” she added, “but a loss could be good for us to see what it's really going to take to play in the 7A-Central Conference."
So with less then 24 hours until they play again in the Northwest Arkansas Invitational at Bentonville, the Lady Hornets are going to have to put this loss behind them and look toward playing Fayetteville in the opener.
When the Lady Hornets, now 2-1 overall, come back to their home field on March 9, they will have Mount St. Mary Academy of Little Rock waiting on them in a return to league action.
