Hornets rebound in Spa City Shootout
By Jeff Reed / Sports Editor / jreed@nlrtimes.com
Wednesday, December 31, 2008 11:13 AM CST
The second day of the Spa City Shootout was a lot better for the Oak Grove Hornets.
Monday morning, the Hornets defeated Mountain Pine 81-64.
They were to play a third game on Tuesday against either Lake Hamilton or Bryant. (Early deadlines because of the holidays prevented the story from being in this week’s paper.)
“We played a lot better than in the first game,’’ said coach Wayne Herren. “We just didn’t show up against Benton. I don’t know if it was the morning start of not. We didn’t play well.’’
Oak Grove fell to Benton 62-47. Benton hit 10 of 16 3-pointers in the victory.
The Panthers are quite familiar with The Summit Arena in Hot Springs and have had a lot of success there.
The Class 6A Panthers lost in the state title game with Little Rock Hall there in March, but won the Spa City Shootout in 2005 and 2006 and lost in the semifinals last year.
Cedrick Williams led Oak Grove with 13 points. Corderell Harris added nine points and Byron Johnson scored seven.
“We actually played better in the second half,’’ Herren said. “They hit a half court shot at the end of the first period and they had all the momentum.’’
Against Mountain Pine, Williams led a balanced attack with 21 points. Richard Grant, Jaloni Patterson and Josh Perkins scored 11 each and Corderell Harris added 10 points.
“We got after them pretty good,’’ said Herren. “We were up 23 in the third quarter, but we let them get it down to 10.
“We got out of our press and did not play as well, so we went back to that.’’
The Hornets forced 35 turnovers.
“Our defense played very well,’’ he said.
The Hornets (7-6) return to 7-4A play on Tuesday when they host Malvern. The Hornets have won their two conference games.
