Sanders finding net often for BHS
Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/bcdr/Sports/60018/
BENTONVILLE — Kelly O’Connor sees a lot of herself in Bentonville junior forward Cortney Sanders.
From Sanders’ short stature (5-foot-2 ) to her aggressiveness and her tenacity on the soccer field to Sanders having a little bit of a mean streak in her, the similarities are striking.
“ If you knock her down she’ll get you back, ” said O’Connor, Bentonville’s all-time leading scorer with 104 goals and now a freshman at the University of Arkansas. “ She reminds me a lot of myself to be honest. ” And at the pace Sanders is scoring goals for Bentonville this season, she’s likely to join O’Connor in the Lady Tigers record book. Sanders is averaging a goal a game for the Lady Tigers, with 18 goals in 18 games. O’Connor holds the singleseason record with 30 goals
scored during her
sophomore season in 2005. She also had 27 goals as a freshman, 25 as a junior and 22 as a senior for her total of 104. Whether Sanders can top O’Connor’s mark of 30 in 2005 is uncertain as the Lady Tigers (16-1-1 ) have seven regular season games remaining, beginning tonight at Springfield (Mo. ) Kickapoo. But just to be mentioned in the same breath as O’Connor means a lot to Sanders.
“ Kelly’s an amazing player, ” Sanders said. “ To be up there with her, that’s a pretty big honor in my opinion. ”
Bentonville coach Kris Henry had a feeling Sanders would be one of the Lady Tigers’ top scorers after she played a lot as a freshman and then scored 8 goals as a sophomore in Bentonville’s state championship season.
Ironically, it was Sanders’ assist in the Class 7 A state championship game that found O’Connor’s foot for the only goal scored in Bentonville’s 1-0 win against Little Rock Central.
“ I expected her to have a big impact because I know the competitive fire she has, ” Henry said. “ I didn’t expect for it to be this quick. I expected it to build as the season went on. ”
Instead, Sanders came out on fire, scoring 5 goals in Bentonville’s first three games, including 3 in an 8-2 win at Springdale.
And Sanders isn’t the only one scoring for Bentonville.
Sophomore midfielder April Miller is right behind her with 13 goals. The Lady Tigers have scored 59 goals as a team, an average of 3. 2 per game, and 11 different players have scored.
“ We’ve got a lot of players that if someone’s having an off day, any one of them can pick up the slack, ” Henry said.
Sanders, especially, has excelled close to the goal. Her header for a score was the game-winner in a nonconference game against Rogers.
“ She can really get up in the air, ” Henry said. “ She has great timing. She’s got a gymnastics background and you can really see it in how athletic she is and getting on the end of those balls. ”
Sanders’ mother teaches gymnastics to preschoolers at Something Special Gymnastics. While she only participated in the sport as a youngster, the background has helped her, Sanders said.
“ The flexibility with that kind of stuff helps me a lot, ” she said. “ It comes natural to me, being able to move. ”
Sanders credited her Bentonville teammates for putting her in position more than her creating opportunities.
“ I think they’re doing an amazing job, ” she said. “ That’s about the only thing I can do is put it in the goal for them working that hard to get it up there. I owe a lot of it to the team for those goals. ”
Sanders also never quits on a ball.
“ She doesn’t ever give up a rebound opportunity, ” O’Connor said. “ A lot of players stop once someone’s taken a shot but Cort will keep going just in case the keeper bobbles it. ”
As a junior, Sanders is just now beginning to get some looks to play soccer at the next level.
She said several schools, including Tulsa, have shown interest and she’s shown an interest in Arkansas, Missouri State and Oklahoma Baptist. That list is likely to grow with every goal scored this year and next.
For now though, Sanders ’ goal is to lead Bentonville to its first-ever 7 A-West Conference championship and, possibly, a second consecutive state title.
“ It’s definitely going to be hard because everybody’s out to get us, ” she said. “ If we can hold our heads together and play as a team I think we should go pretty far. ”