RSS Feed
|  |
|
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Panthers beat Hornets on last shot
The quiet, gentle giant for the Panthers hit the game-winning shot with 1.7 seconds left in the game to lift Benton to a 43-41 victory over the visiting Bryant Hornets. Martin's turn-around jumper at the free-throw line swished the net after Bryant's Chad Knight tied the game on a 3-pointer with 13 seconds to play. They were Martin's only points of the game. "Of all the kids in the program, Ben is an excellent kid," said Benton Panthers head coach Chris Nail. "I was so proud to see him make that shot for us. He's worked so hard." Martin's heroics for Benton were set up in part by Brandon Jones, who had scored 32 points against Conway and led the Panthers with 18 points against the Hornets. "Offensively, Brandon had 18 points and I bet he had seven or eight rebounds," Nail said. "We got into a little foul trouble, but defensively we really did a good job on Chad Knight, except for the very end and we lost an assignment. I felt like the Bryant kids did a great job and they keyed on Brandon in the first half. When we met at halftime, I told them two things - I was really unhappy with the way we were handling their press and, number two, the way Zack Lewis was penetrating the lane - he ws killing us in there."
A basket from Jones and one from Jacob Yoakum ended the first quarter with the Panthers ahead 11-6. Davis kept taking the ball down the lane and scored the first points of the second period. Knight made a steal and converted a layup to make it a one-point game, and then a defensive struggle ensued. Blocks by Wingerter and Martin on the Panthers defensive side were equaled by Bryant's offensive rebounding from Sample and Cowart.
A basket by Sample and another drive through the lane from Lewis for a score set up a bucket from Cowart to give the Hornets a 16-15 lead. Jones hit two free throws to give the advantage back to Benton, but Lewis sank one of two from the line in the final 20 seconds to tie the game 17-17 at the break. "We wanted to try to cut the penetration down and press better," Nail said. We moved Brandon to the middle of the press offense. He's so athletic, it's hard to keep him out of the middle." Lewis came out in the third period to hit a 3-pointer to give Bryant the lead. Jones scored and Belcher put in a basket to bring back the Panthers, but Taylor Masters hit two free throws and Knight hit a free throw to make it a 23-21 Bryant lead.
Masters scored again to tie the game to start the crucial fourth period. Benton had the answer in the form of Landon Parker and a 3-pointer. Cowart answered for Bryant, but Jones put the Panthers back in the lead. The back and forth battle continued with a tying shot from Davis for Bryant. Parker hit his second 3-pointer to widen the gap and Jones put Benton up by five points with two free throws with 1:44 to play in the game, 41-38. Neither team scored again until Knight hit the game-tying 3-pointers. "This is my first win and it's a sweet one for me," Nail said. "Our intensity level is picking up and improving. I think our biggest obstacle right now is that we've got to find consistent scoring. We will continue to work on those things and I do think we'll be a good team this year."
Bryant was led by Davis with 14 points, Cowart scored nine points, Masters finished with six points, Knight added six points, Sample put in four points and Tim Floyd added one point. "It was hard way to go," said Bryant's head coach Mark Smith. "They did a good job at the end. Our guys played hard when we could have easily folded camp - we didn't and it's hard to address the team after a loss like that and tell them how hard they played, then try to encourage them that good things will happen if they continue to play that way. If they play that hard we're going to win a lot of games." As far as the archrivalry goes, which Smith was a part of during his high school days, the Hornets stuck to the game plan. "We did pretty much what we're suppose to do there," Smith said. "We had a couple of bad waves we had to ride out that we didn't execute the way we should have. It would have been easy there, behind by three to concede and fold up, but our guys didn't do that at all. "Our guys fought and battled and Chad got a good shot over there. There were a few little spots here and there that, if we executed, I felt like we could have won the game. We had a couple of shots rim in and out. It's a tribute to our guys that they didn't give up." The Hornets made 13 of 27 shots from the field, hit 6 of 9 free throws, were 3 of 10 behind the 3-point arc, had 18 rebounds, six steals and one block.
The Panthers hit 13 of 16 from the field, made 8 of 9 free throws, hit 3 of 10 3-pointers, pulled down 17 rebounds had 12 steals and two blocks. |
for larger version       |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
)
)
)
)
)