Lady Hornets topple Lady Wolves in straight sets
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).
In their final tune-up before embarking on the gauntlet that is the 7A-Central Conference, the Bryant Lady Hornets dismissed the Lake Hamilton Lady Wolves in straight sets on Tuesday at the Hornets Nest, 25-22, 25-19, 25-20.
In a junior varsity match, Bryant won 25-17, 25-21.
“Glad we had a win tonight,” said Bryant head coach Beth Solomon. “We needed to redeem ourselves from last week and get a win on our home court.”
The Lady Hornets suffered a disappointing loss in their home opener against Fountain Lake on Thursday, Aug. 24.
“I was proud of the way the girls played tonight,” Solomon said, “but we always have room for improvement.”
Bryant travels to Fort Smith on Thursday to open league play against the Northside Lady Bears.
“I’m excited to see how the girls play,” the coach said. “We need to start off conference with a win, especially after a long trip like that. I’m confident that we will play hard and continue to get better as we go through the season.”
Against Lake Hamilton, the Lady Hornets picked up kills from 10 different players, led by Faith Stone with seven and Raven Loveless with four. Ashlyn Lee, Ivory Russ and Kristen Boyle added two each while Reagan Dabbs, Macey Loudon, Lexi Brown, Kyla Baker and Erin Thompson contributed one apiece.
Truli Bates had seven blocks, Loveless three. Boyle and Lee picked up two each and Russ had one. Lee also had 11 assists, Brown five.
At the service line, the Lady Hornets weren’t as efficient as usual but they were good on 89 percent of their attempts. Lee, Thompson, Baker, Dabbs and Cassie Ray had one ace each.
In the first game of the match, Bryant got separation from Lake Hamilton with a 9-2 surge midway through the set. The Lady Hornets’ lead was 9-7. Brown served for a point then a quick turn of errors brought Dabbs to the service line for a couple of points on a Lady Wolves’ error and a block by Bates.
It was 13-9 after an exchange of serves. A hitting error gained control for Bryant with Lee taking the serve at 14-9. Russ had a kill then Lee served up her ace. Loveless continued the run with a kill and Bates had another block to run it out to 18-9, forcing a Lake Hamilton timeout.
The Lady Wolves rallied to eventually trim the margin to 21-20. But Stone broke serve with a kill. With Dabbs serving, Stone added another kill. A hitting error by Lake Hamilton made it 24-20
A net violation cost the Lady Hornets the game point but only momentarily. A Lake Hamilton ace cut it to 24-22 but a hitting error cost the Lady Wolves game point.
Despite breaking out to a 3-0 lead with a pair of kills by Loveless, the Lady Hornets trailed much of the second game. It was 9-12 before Dabbs came through with a service-break kill.
With Lee serving, the Lady Hornets squared it at 12. They took the lead on a hitting error, which made it 14-13 with Thompson at the line. Her ace added to the margin and when Lake Hamilton suffered another error, it was 16-13 and the Lady Wolves took another timeout.
The lead ballooned to 19-13 before the Lady Wolves broke serve. They trimmed the lead to 17-20 but could get no closer after a dink by Lee broke serve. The final surge was highlighted by two more kills from Stone and one by Boyle.
In the final game, it was tied 7-7 then, with Brown serving, Boyle made a block and Stone had a kill to give the Lady Hornets the upper hand for good.
Lake Hamilton pulled within 18-17 but a kill by Stone broke serve. Boyle, Stone and Loveless had kills down the stretch to secure the match.
Solomon said, “One thing we noted is that JV’s passing was on point almost the entire game. That’s one thing that we have been really isolating in practice.
“The other thing that we noted is that we did a good job of covering our deep corner balls,” she noted. “We’ve given up a lot of points to teams that have pushed a second ball to our deep court corners. Tonight, we seemed to take care of those balls better than we have all season.”
In the JV match, Casey Welch had five kills and Grace Camferdam and Brooke Abney had three each. Imanii Jones contributed two. Beatriz Hernandez and Ashley Davis had one apiece.
Jones proviced a pair of blocks and Welch one.
Hernandez had four assists, three digs and a service ace. Shannon Stewart had two aces and Cora Edwards one. Davis had two digs and Camferdam two. Kiarra Beard came up with a dig as well.
