Lady Hornets kick it in gear in the fourth quarter to pull away from Lake Hamilton
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
PEARCY — At first, it looked like it was going to be easy. The Bryant Lady Hornets, fresh from capturing the championship of the Crabtree Invitational Tournament at Bentonville, opened their game at Lake Hamilton on Tuesday night with 3-point buckets from Haley Montgomery and Hannah Goshien with a Lady Wolves turnover in between.
But after that, the Lady Wolves just wouldn’t go away until a fourth-quarter flourish by Bryant produced a comfortable 60-45 victory.[more]
“I felt like we started well but then I think we just relaxed a little bit more than we should have,” noted Bryant head coach Blake Condley. “Then we just kind of did what we had to until the fourth quarter when we decided, ‘Okay, let’s go ahead and flip the switch.’”
The coach was not particularly enamored with that scenario, especially from a team with six seniors that has the aspirations that this one does.
“The thing I’m trying to get across to the girls is I think that gets us beat by a better team than what we were playing tonight,” he asserted. “And nothing against Lake Hamilton. I thought they played well tonight as far as they wanted to do.”
In other words, the Lady Hornets can’t do what they want to do this season playing that way.
“That’s it,” Condley acknowledged. “We’ve got to be able to focus in and work on things we want to do, not worry about what another team’s doing and not put ourselves in a position where we’re playing their way. We’ve got to worry about us and make sure we do things the way we want to do them.
“We’re talking about, we want to get better every time we get on the floor,” he added. “And I don’t think we’re better today than we were Saturday (in the Crabtree final), but I hope, after tonight, we are better because we, hopefully, learned from this and we don’t let it happen any more as we go through the season.”
Ashleigh Brown produced a lot of what kept the Lady Wolves close, scoring a game-high 25 points.
For the Lady Hornets, Shanika Johnson became the fourth different player to lead the team in scoring in a game this season. She connected on four 3-pointers on her way to 14 points. Brooke Parish added 12 with six rebounds. Both played off the bench.
Goshien (on three 3’s) and Alana Morris each had 9 points. Morris also had nine boards. Montgomery pitched in with 7 points, Abbi Stearns 6 and Kenzee Calley 3.
Lake Hamilton tied the game at 6 midway through the opening quarter but never gained the lead. Calley snapped the tie with one of her high-arching jumpers from the wing. Parish added a free throw after hitting the offensive boards.
A bank shot by Lady Wolves’ point guard Jasmine Carter cut the lead to 1 then Johnson and Brown traded hoops.
With 1:22 left in the opening period, Johnson buried her first trey from the corner and, following a Lake Hamilton miss, Parish knocked down a 15-footer to give the Lady Hornets a 16-10 lead going into the second stanza.
Stearns, fouled following her own miss, converted a pair of free throws to start the second-quarter scoring, making it an 8-point game but Brown kept the game close. When Crystal Schaffer hit a running jumper with 2:54 left in the half, the Lady Wolves were within 23-17.
But Goshien nailed a 3 and Morris hit a free throw to make it a 10-point game.
Behind a 3 from Collier and a late basket by Brown, however, the lead was just 28-22 at the half.
And when Brown scored off a steal and Diana Mata posted up for a basket to start the third quarter, the Lady Wolves were back within 28-26. They had a chance to tie it but Stearns blocked a shot and, at the other end, Montgomery nailed a 10-foot jumper then made a steal and a layup to keep Bryant ahead.
Still, the Lady Wolves only trailed 37-35 going into the final stanza. Given another chance to tie or take the lead, the Lady Wolves were unable to get a shot to go and Johnson made them pay with a 3. After Mata missed the front end of a one-and-one, Morris plucked the rebound and took off. Seeing Johnson ahead of the defense, she made a long pass to her. Spotting up on the left wing, Johnson flushed another triple. And when Morris followed up with a nice move inside for her first field goal of the game, the lead was back to 10 and Lake Hamilton needed a timeout.
Brown got her team back on track with a short jumper and Mata added a free throw to trim the lead to 7 but that was as close as the Lady Wolves would get. Morris posted up for a bucket then combined with Johnson to force a turnover that led to an offensive-rebound basket by Parish and a 49-38 lead.
Schaffer missed and Morris drove the baseline for a basket that bumped the lead to 13 and forced another Lake Hamilton timeout.
When play resumed, Brown scored off a drive. Stearns answered with a pair of free throws before Mata canned a trey to get the lead back to 10. Morris and Parish then put on an offensive show. First, Morris fed Parish with a no-look pass from the right side of the lane resulting in a layup. Then the duo worked a nice give-and-go that resulted in a three-point play for Parish. Morris capped that with another eye-popping pass to Stearns who missed but followed for a basket that gave Bryant its largest lead of the game at 60-43.
Now 4-0, the Lady Hornets will open play in the Joe T. Robinson Invitational Tournament at Pulaski Robinson High School on Wednesday night at 8 against North Pulaski.
In a JV game, the Lady Hornets swamped Lake Hamilton 43-13. Taylor Neal led the way with 15 points. Callie Hogancamp and Casey Lee added 6 each, Kayla Sory 5, Reagan Barker and London Abernathy 4 each and Brittany Ball 3.
LADY HORNETS 60, LADY WOLVES 45
Score by quarters
BRYANT 16 12 9 23 — 60
Lake Hamilton 10 12 13 10 — 45
LADY HORNETS 60
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Montgomery 3-8 0-2 0-2 2 1 7
Goshien 3-10 0-0 2-0 2 2 9
Calley 1-3 1-3 0-3 3 4 3
Stearns 1-6 4-4 3-3 6 3 6
Morris 4-8 1-2 3-6 9 1 9
Johnson 5-14 0-0 2-2 4 2 14
Parish 5-6 2-2 4-2 6 1 12
Team 0-2 2
Totals 22-55 8-13 14-20 34 14 60
LADY WOLVES 45
Player fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
J.Collier 2-9 0-0 1-1 2 2 5
Schaffer 2-10 2-4 2-7 9 2 7
S.Collier 0-0 0-2 2-1 3 4 0
Brown 11-19 2-2 2-3 5 0 25
Mata 3-6 1-3 1-2 3 4 8
Chunn 0-0 0-0 0-2 2 2 0
Team 2-5 7
Totals 18-44 5-11 10-21 31 14 45
Three-point field goals: Bryant 8-24 (Johnson 4-11, Goshien 3-9, Montgomery 1-4), Lake Hamilton 4-12 (Schaffer 1-4, Brown 1-3, Mata 1-3, J.Collier 1-2). Turnovers: Bryant 9, Lake Hamilton 16.
