The Bryant Hornets will keep the Saline County Shootout trophy this season after a 64-46 victory over rival Benton Panthers at Benton Arena on Tuesday. Last year, the Hornets edged the Panthers 54-53 in the shootout and beat Benton 58-55 the first game of the year last year. Tuesday, it was all Bryant as the Hornets (7-1) used a 14-0 run in the first quarter and forced 13 Benton (7-2) turnovers in the first half, which Bryant led 29-14.
“That was the plan,” Bryant Coach Mike Abrahamson said. “That’s how we like to do things. I thought first half our kids gave an outstanding defensive effort. Second half, it was an OK defensive effort. But to their (Panthers) credit, they really started getting downhill on their drives and getting in the lanes and they were hard to guard.”
The Panthers would take a 2-0 lead on junior Jai Peters 3-foot floater six seconds into the game and senior Fred Harris’ layup assisted by senior Shaheed Halk had Benton up 4-2 with 4:29 left in the first quarter. But, it was all Bryant after that.
Bryant senior Calvin Allen, who led the Hornets with 19 points for the game, made a layup which started the 14-0 run which was capped by another Allen layup for a 16-4 Hornet lead with just over a minute remaining. Peters stopped the run with an 18-foot jumper for the 16-6 Panther deficit after one.
“I thought that had a huge impact on the game,” Benton Coach Dexter Hendrix said. “Any time you start out in a game like that with 13 turnovers early on … they were all turnover and touchdowns. They scored on all of them.
Read the rest in Wednesday's The Saline Courier.