National Park College (NPC) Nighthawk Men’s and Women’s basketball teams played North Arkansas College Pioneers Friday night at Harrison.
The men’s team fell to the Pioneers 107-94 after a hard fought match. The team went into halftime down by nine. The Nighthawks made a run midway through the second half to cut the lead to three. Northark was able to use their size to salt the game away and come up with the victory. “I was really proud of our effort tonight. We were tremendously outsized but we were never outclassed. We showed them that we can compete at this level. There are some really good days ahead for the Nighthawks,” said Coach Jason Hudnell.
Leading scorer for the men was Braylon Steen (24) of Bryant who scored 25 points, 10 rebounds, two assists and a steal. KJ Corder (13) of Hot Springs earned 23 points, six rebounds, three assists and a steal. Jarvis Ricks (1) of North Little Rock added 21 points, including five tres, one rebound and two assists to the board. Clyde Ricks (4) of Hope landed 10 points, one rebound, two assists and two steals. Lowell Washington (12) of Bryant added 9 points, 6 rebounds and one assist.
The NPC women held an 18-14 advantage at the end of the first quarter but ran out of gas against the #8 ranked Pioneers. They entered the second half down by 13 points and lost with a final score of 81-48.
Leading scorer for the women was Faith Bratton (33) of Jessieville. Bratton scored 14 points, had four rebounds and two assists. Kayla Sims (23) of Fountain Lake scored 13 points and had four rebounds. Bailey Womack (25) of Fountain Lake earned 11 points, three rebounds and one assist.
The Nighthawk men play Arkansas Baptist College at 5 p.m. February 7 in Little Rock.
A complete schedule of games and links to archived broadcasts of games are available at www.np.edu/athletics.
