Lake Hamilton caught in Bryant air raid

BRYANT— Junior quarterback Ren Hefley threw four touchdown passes in the first half leading the Bryant Hornets to a 56-7 rout of Lake Hamilton on Friday night at Hornet Stadium.

“They boxed it in tonight and kind of dared us to throw the football,” second-year Bryant head coach Buck James said. “We took advantage of it. I thought our offensive line gave us some great protection.”

Hefley finished the night 13 of 15 for

282 yards with touchdown passes of 25,

31, 65 and 37 yards.

“Ren had all day to throw,” James said. “It was an explosive night for us.”

Bryant (3-0) opened scoring on its second play after forcing a turnover. Hefley connected with senior wide receiver Ja’kalon Pittman for 25 yards and a 6-0 lead with 46 seconds off the clock.

Lake Hamilton answered with a 22yard touchdown pass from Utah Aitken to fellow senior Jackson Johnson. The extra point gave the Wolves a 7-6 lead with 8:33 left in the first quarter.

“(Bryant) had a good plan of stopping us and making us work and because of that, we threw the ball a little bit more,” Lake Hamilton first-year head coach Tommy Gilleran said.

Unfortunately for the Wolves, it went downhill from there.

“They are real physical up front,” Gilleran said. “It is hard for us to move them. They started dominating the line of scrimmage and when they did that, it kind of took the game away from us.

“Right now they are a little bit more physical and stronger than we are and that’s something we have to work on.”

Aitken completed just three of his 17 passes for 41 yards and had two interceptions. Senior Jacob Nichols had eight carries for 32 yards and Johnson seven carries for 43 yards to lead the Wolves in rushing.

“They’ve been averaging over 40 points, so to hold them to seven points, we did a lot of good things,” James said. “We just expect a lot from those guys and that is what it is going to take to win a championship, have a great defense.”

Bryant went up 13-7 on Hefley’s 31-yard TD pass to senior Brandon Murray, 5:59 left in the first quarter.

“This is just my first year here, so we are still developing some things and trying to understand some stuff,” Gilleran said. “[This game] is something to learn from. Bryant has beaten some good schools already (Class 6A Benton and defending Class 7A champion Fayetteville), so we are just going to have to continue to work and get better.”

Bryant junior Latavion Scott had six carries for 23 yards and a touchdown. Senior Kris King scored a touchdown on one of his two carries for the Hornets.

Bryant opens its conference season next week at Fort Smith Southside while Lake Hamilton travels to El Dorado.

“I thought we ended up playing well,” James said. “We didn’t play good on first and second down on defense, then we got to where we didn’t play well on third down. We just got to be more consistent.”