Lady Hornets surprise Lady Blue Devils in West Memphis
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
WEST MEMPHIS — With a key starter back, 6-foot forward Kierra Adams, and three others that played plenty off the bench for a 6A State tournament team, West Memphis figures to be another in a long line of Lady Blue Devils teams that are among the best in the State in 2010-11.
But, in a preseason scrimmage in the new Devil Dome on Tuesday night, the Bryant Lady Hornets forced them into a whopping 34 turnovers on the way to a 49-37 win.[more]
The Lady Devils’ only lead of the game was 4-2. Junior London Abernathy got a layup off a nice give-and-go with senior Abbi Stearns to tie it then added a short jumper to give Bryant a 6-4 edge.
Kierra Adams answered to tie it but when junior Breanna Blundell knocked down a baseline jumper to give Bryant an 8-6 lead, it was for good.
Sophomore McKenzie Adams led Bryant with 14 points. Abernathy had 12, sophomore Kiara Moore 9, Stearns 7 and Blundell 6 for the Lady Hornets. Stearns led with nine rebounds. No one for West Memphis scored in double figures. Kierra Adams led with 7 points and nine rebounds.
“I thought our effort, our intensity was good,” observed Lady Hornets coach Blake Condley. “I didn’t think it was perfect. I thought there were a few plays — you know, we’ve been trying to count ‘loafs’ this year and I think I can go back and look at the film and find some ‘loafs.’ But, for the most part, to force over 30 turnovers, your defense has got to be playing pretty hard, your energy and your intensity has got to be pretty high. I was pleased with that.
“I feel like West Memphis is due for a good year this year,” he acknowledged. “I think this was a good check for us early. We play somebody good and I guess it could backfire if you don’t play well but I thought we were able to do some good things and I thought all the things that we didn’t do correctly are fixable, things we can go back and look at the film and talk about in practice. These girls are good enough, their basketball IQ is good enough, we can fix these and I think we’ll be much better when we hit the practice floor the rest of the week.”
Asked what, in particular, the team needed to work on, Condley added, “I think just some of the situations that we got in, just to make sure that we understand what we need to be doing at different times in the game.
“And they threw a zone at us and, honestly, we did better against that than we’ve done in the past,” he mentioned. “There were some times this summer where we looked at a zone like we’d never seen one before because we don’t play much zone. We had to call timeout and then talk about it at halftime and once we got into some of the things we’d done in practice, we were able to start scoring against the zone, to start doing some things.”
Bryant led 15-8 at the end of the first quarter. Two free throws by Abernathy and a basket from the corner by Stears in the final 15 seconds expanded on an 11-8 advantage.
With 5:41 left in the half, the Lady Hornets’ lead was 16-10 but they then went on a 7-2 run to end the half then opened the third quarter with the first 6 points to pile up a 29-12 advantage that had the home crowd more than a little stunned.
McKenzie Adams started the run that ended the half with a driving layup. Stearns then grabbed the rebound on a miss by West Memphis and went end-to-end for a layup to produce the first double-digit lead at 20-10.
A steal and layup by the Lady Devils’ Morgan Wilkerson interrupted but when Moore canned a triple with 1:06 left, the margin was up to 23-12.
To go with their 12 points on just 6 of 18 shooting from the field, the Lady Blue Devils had committed 19 turnovers by that time.
The teams traded turnovers to start the third quarter before Moore made a steal and fed Abernathy for a layup. After Jasmine Greer misfired for West Memphis, Abernathy was fouled on a follow shot. Her free throws were followed by a theft by Stearns who dished to Moore for a layup that produced the largest lead of the game.
Before the third quarter was over, the Lady Devils trimmed the margin to 9 but they could get no closer. Thanks to free throws by Logan Davis and Moore, the Bryant lead was 38-28 going into the fourth quarter.
West Memphis eventually scrambled back within 43-37 about halfway through the final period only to be held scoreless over the final 4:22.
McKenzie Adams, who scored 8 of her points in the fourth quarter, had a three-point play with 3:48 to go then followed it up with a driving jumper. Stearns finished off the scoring with 1:45 to go.
The Lady Hornets will officially get their season started on Tuesday, Nov. 16, at Sheridan. The game was originally set for Thursday, Nov. 18, but was moved to Tuesday due to a conflict for the Lady Yellowjackets.
LADY HORNETS 49, LADY BLUE DEVILS 37
Score by quarters
BRYANT 15 8 15 11 — 49
West Memphis 8 4 16 9 — 37
LADY HORNETS 48
Name fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Moore 2-11 4-9 2-0 2 4 9
M.Adams 5-12 4-5 1-5 6 3 14
Abernathy 4-9 4-4 2-0 2 3 12
Stearns 3-6 1-2 4-5 9 3 7
Blundell 2-10 2-6 0-2 2 0 6
Davis 0-2 1-2 0-1 1 2 1
Hogancamp 0-0 0-0 0-2 2 1 0
Team 1-2 3
Totals 16-50 16-28 10-17 27 16 49
LADY BLUE DEVILS 37
Name fg-fga ft-fta reb fls pts
o-d-t
Knight 0-1 0-0 0-0 0 0 0
Wright 2-4 0-0 0-1 1 2 4
Greer 2-5 1-1 0-1 1 3 6
K.Adams 3-6 1-4 0-9 9 2 7
Jefferies 1-1 1-1 2-4 6 3 3
Wilkerson 1-3 1-2 0-1 1 1 3
Brown 2-4 0-0 0-1 1 3 4
Winn 0-0 2-4 1-3 4 1 2
Gray 1-2 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Wilson 0-1 0-0 1-3 4 1 0
Logan 1-2 0-1 1-3 4 0 2
Corter 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 2 0
Jackson 1-3 0-2 1-1 2 2 2
McDowell 1-3 0-0 0-0 0 0 2
Team 1-2 3
Totals 15-35 6-15 5-25 30 20 37
Three-point field goals: Bryant 1-6 (Moore 1-3, M.Adams 0-1, Stearns 0-1, Davis 0-1), West Memphis 1-7 (Greer 1-3, Knight 0-1, Wright 0-1, Wilkerson 0-1, Brown 0-1). Turnovers: Bryant 16, West Memphis 34.
