STARKVILLE — The Starkville High School boys basketball team used a ton of offense Tuesday night to beat Louisville 94-49.
In the first game, the Starkville High girls used defense as their weapon in a 62-46 victory.
Jacolby Mobley lead the Jackets with 26 points, while Mississippi State commitment Gavin Ware had 23 for the state’s top team. Starkville High coach Greg Carter was pleased with how his team worked to get high-percentage shots.
“I thought we played pretty well,” Carter said. “I thought there were some spurts where they played better than us. For the most part, we got high-percentage shots. We got it to the basket and had layups and dunks. We made some threes along with it, and that helped stretched the lead out in that third quarter.”
The Yellow Jackets played like one of the state’s top teams, but Carter said the ranking doesn’t mean much and that he doesn’t want this team to focus on that.
“We don’t see that as being pressure,” Carter said. “We don’t talk about it. It’s nothing we sit around and think about all the time. … I don’t think anybody remembers who was number one this time last year. They just remember who is number one at the end of the year. That’s the one we are concerned about.”
Ware scored 10 points in the first quarter as Starkville never trailed. He had four dunks in the first quarter to set the tone. He dunked over Dontea Jones late in the first quarter to give the Yellow Jackets a 23-11 lead after the first quarter.
“I thought they were going to try and double team me, but they didn’t and I was surprised,” Ware said. “It gave me an advantage to do post moves and some of the stuff I have been working on in practice.”
Louisville coach Hilute Hudson had a player foul out in the third quarter, which he credited to Ware’s talent.
“When you play Gavin, you know he is a good player and put a plan in in
practice, which is an automatic double,” Hudson said. “You get a guy foul out because guys are not doing their job. They are worried about the dunk.”
Ware only scored four points in the second quarter, but Mobley had nine to stretch the lead to 52-30 at halftime.
“He played real well,” Carter said of Mobley. “He made shots and he got it to the basket. When he is driving it to the basket like he was tonight and finishing it makes it that much harder to guard a jump shot. It’s hard to stay in front of him anyway, but when he is getting it to the basket like he was tonight he is hard to deal with.”
Hudson knew it would be hard to stop one player, but he believes stopping one player isn’t enough to secure a victory.
“As good as both of those guys are it’s pick your poison,” Hudson said. “If we put our focus on stopping Mobley then Gavin goes off. When you play a team like that and they have two good players, you got to pick which one is going to kill you.”
Mobley had 12 points in the third quarter and hit several threes to help pace his team to a 76-44 lead after three quarters. Ware had five points in the third and would later be taken out with the rest of the starting five before the
end of the quarter.
“I think we did really good,” Ware said. “I think we took them a little light and we didn’t do some of the stuff we needed to accomplish we do in practice.”
Steve Brand added 17 points to give Starkville three players in double figures.
In the girls game, Starkville’s defense helped it force turnovers that allowed it to build and to hold a double-digit lead for most of the game.
Louisville cut the deficit to eight points in the fourth quarter, but it couldn’t overcome Starkville’s defense.
“I had my seniors out there on the floor and I told them that this was
their house, protect your house,” said Starkville coach Kristie Williams, who gave her team a pep talk during a timeout in the fourth quarter. “We have been stressing since the Grenada game before Thanksgiving that our defensive intensity had to pick up and we needed to go out in this game with that fire of wanting to play hard, and they showed it late in this game.”
Senior Britany Brown led Starkville with 26 points. Kelsey Reed, Jacqueline Fair, and Sheneka Townsel each had eight.
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