The Bryant White Hornets eighth grade team avenged their lone loss of the season on Thursday night with a convincing 50-25 win over the Lake Hamilton Wolves eighth graders. The win improved the Hornets to 10-1 on the season going into a trip to Cabot North on Tuesday, Jan. 19.
The lone loss came at Lake Hamilton on Dec. 14 by a score of 44-24.
“It was a big win for our guys,” acknowledged Bryant White coach Richard Wrightner. “They’ve been waiting a month for this moment to get another chance at Lake Hamilton.”
The first quarter was a battle. The Hornets wound up taking a 15-11 lead into the second period. That’s when they started to dominate as they outscored the visitors 11-2 to make it 26-13 at the half. It was 38-20 going into the fourth quarter.
Chris Johnson had 7 of his 9 points in the first quarter. In the second period, Cedric Jones scored 5 of his 10 points in the game and Daniel Anderson had 4 of his 6. Elem Shelby led Bryant White with 13 points in the game.
Tristan Knox and Dylan Holman added 4 each. Darrell Moore and Caleb Knight each had 2.
“We approached the game the same way as we always do,” said Wrightner, “aggressive, fast, and with high intensity. This time around we had a few players back that were missing from being quarantined, which helped us out a lot. We also hit our shots. We moved the ball well when and got into the lane when Lake Hamilton played us man to man. We moved the ball around and found good open shots when they switched to a 2-3 zone.”
It was the fifth time in the last six games in which the Hornets have held an opponent to 25 points or less.
“We’ve been playing really good defense the past few games,” acknowledged Wrightner. “We mixed several different presses, and threw three different half court defenses in. All of our guys played really well. They practiced hard to prepare for that game and I’m proud of the way they all played.”
