The final game of the 2017-18 season for the Bryant White Hornets eighth grade team of Bryant Middle School was not indicative of their season. With key players out with injury and illness, the Hornets took on a strong Conway White Wampus Cats team on Thursday night.
Though the Hornets led 8-6 late in the first quarter, Conway White went on an 18-0 run that put Bryant in a too deep a well for a comeback. The Wampus Cats wound up with a 52-20 victory, ending the Hornets’ season with a 13-4 record.
Bryant entered the game having won 11 of its last 12 games.
Isaiah Kearney led the Hornets with 11 points. Landyn Newburn added 4 while Cameron Boothe and Daizure Hale added 2 each and Turner Seelinger hit a free throw.
Kearney scored 6 of his points during the opening stretch in which the Hornets produced the 8-6 lead. The other basket came via a drive by Boothe.
By the end of the first quarter, Conway White had rushed to a 14-8 lead and it was 24-8 before Haile scored off a drive to end Bryant’s drought.
That basket came at the 3:34 mark of the second quarter and proved to be the only points of the period for the Hornets. Conway White built the advantage to 31-10 at the half.
A free throw for the Cats opened the second half then the Hornets began to whittle on the 22-point lead. Newburn scored on a pull-up jumper in the lane. After a trade-off of turnovers, Kearney drove for a bucket and Newburn scored again to make it 32-16.
Conway White scored but Kearney’s 3 had the margin down to 15 with 2:33 left in the third quarter.
But that proved to be the last Bryant field goal of the game. Seelinger’s free throw came at the end of the third quarter but, by then, the Wampus Cats led 41-20.
The margin grew to 50-20 invoking the sportsmanship rule with 2:20 left in the game.
