Photos by Rick Nation
In 13 of their 17 matches this season, the Bryant Lady Hornets have shutout their opponent and, on Tuesday night, they made it five matches in a row and six in the last seven, with a 5-0 victory over the Sheridan Lady Yellowjackets at Bryant Stadium.
Bryant, now 15-0-2 overall and 7-0 in the South Conference has outscored the opposition 76-4. The Lady Hornets have not allowed more than one goal in any match this season. They’ve won 12 in a row since a 0-0 tie with Mount St. Mary Academy in a tournament in Bentonville on March 15. (They’ve since pinned a 6-0 loss on the Belles, who lead the 7A/6A-Central Conference.)
With such dominance, Lady Hornets head coach Julie Long has been coming up with a variety of challenges for her team in an effort to maintain focus and improve in different facets of the game. Tuesday was no different.
“We tried a different technique on scoring,” she related. “I really wanted to challenge the girls to try to score a different way every time we score. We rely on the same techniques to score so one of our goals is to put some other tools in our box.”
The alternate technique produced a goal for Anna Lowery less than eight minutes into the match. Jacie McMahan assisted. The Lady Hornets built a 3-0 lead by halftime. Caroline Campbell hit the mark off a feed from Rori Whittaker at 17:17 then, with 2:45 left until intermission, Hadley Dickinson drove a shot past the Sheridan keeper with Kara Taylor assisting.
Rori Whittaker (Photo by Rick Nation)
Lowery got the scoring started in the second half as well, at the 32:45 mark. Dickinson assisted. At 20:04, Kendall Selig found the back of the net to cap the scoring. Kierra Solinger provided the assist.
“The girls played pretty well,” Long said. “Our intensity wasn’t quite where it needed to be but that is something that we will focus on for Thursday.”
That’s when the Lady Hornets will take on perennial state power Searcy for a much-anticipated challenge.
