North Little Rock girls hand Bryant White its second loss in a row

For more photos of this event by Kevin Nagle, go here

Emma Chappell (Photo by Kevin Nagle)

The best teams that the Bryant White Lady Hornets eighth-grade team of Bryant Middle School have played this season just happened to come in back-to-back games in the last week. On Monday night, they suffered a 46-22 setback at the hands of the North Little Rock Lady Charging Wildcats.

The loss came on the heels of a 45-25 disappointment against a very good Sylvan Hills team on Thursday that snapped the Lady Hornets’ nine-game winning streak.

They’ll try to get back on track tonight as they host Benton.

Bryant White trailed just 9-6 after a quarter and was doing a good job of driving and getting to the basket. They just struggled to finish. In the second quarter, they were unable to score until there was just 1:15 left when Jordan Hancock found the range.

Fortunately, the Lady Hornets’ own defense was pretty good to that point and North Little Rock had only been able to increase the margin to 15-6 before Hancock’s basket.

At the other end, Emma Chappell blocked a North Little Rock shot, but the Lady Hornets were unable to take advantage. And when the Lady Cats hit a 3 to beat the buzzer, the lead was 10.

Jayla Purifoy (42) releases a shot trying to get it over the North Little Rock defense. (Photo by Kevin Nagle)

It was 20-8 when North Little Rock scored the first basket of the third quarter. Hancock answered and, moments later, fed Chappell for a bucket that made it 20-12 with 5:17 left in the stanza.

But the Lady Hornets were unable to score the rest of the half. North Little Rock went on a 16-0 run that took most of the mystery out of the final result.

Hancock and Chappell each finished with 6 points to lead Bryant White. Daria Greer and Jayla Purifoy added 3 apiece while Zoe Turner and Jayla Keith scored 2 each.

The Lady Hornets actually forced 16 turnovers but committed 21 of their own. They out-rebounded the Lady Cats 26-23 but only shot 29 percent from the field (10 of 35) and connected on only 2 of 7 free throws.