STARKVILLE – With two minutes left in the first quarter, West Point coach Brad Cox looked up and saw a tie game and his team building momentum.
Two minutes later, he didn’t need to look again. Starkville ended the the first quarter on a 19-3 run in its dominating 82-45 home victory over West Point.
“It was three trips in a row where they would leak out behind us and had numbers to get six quick points,” Cox said. “From that point, the wheels came off.”
Yellow Jackets junior guard Steven Brand led the charge during that first quarter stretch with seven points including two breakaway dunks that got the crowd at Starkville High on their feet early into the contest. Brand would end with nine points in less than three quarters of action.
“That run was real big and got us all hyped early on to get our offense going,” Brand said. “We have been playing together since middle school and we just play the same way now.”
Starkville (7-0) got seven of its first 11 points from senior center Gavin Ware. The 6-foot-8 Ware, who has signed to play next year at Mississippi State University, ended with 15 points mostly on putback dunks, and his early dominance opened up the perimeter for the rest of the evening.
“We got out on the break for easy baskets and got a bunch of them in a quick amount of time,” Starkville coach Greg Carter said. “They have some good pieces now and they were playing well early on so we had to turn it up.”
West Point (3-4) struggled after senior center Tyrone Saverson got into foul trouble trying to deal with the inside presence of Ware.
“He really came ready to play and we were feeding off him early,” Saverson said. “Once he came out, they got offensive rebounds and dunks that hurt us inside.”
When he left the game with two early fouls, the Green Wave had only two baskets in the final five minutes of the first quarter. Saverson finished with a team-high 13 points but had just six in the second half.
The Yellow Jackets were led in scoring by senior forward Tori Rice’s 17 points with most of the baskets inside the lane. Starkville has won four games in the 2011-12 season by at least 20 points before they the enter region part of their Class 5A schedule.
Starkville girls 59,
West Point 45
Kristie Williams stomped her foot and called a timeout to make a singular point during her 30-second huddle.
The Starkville girls basketball coach knew rebounding would be the critical element of the game and it would be all about effort.
“You have to light that fire underneath them sometimes that’s for sure,” Williams said. “After we talked about it, they knew why it was key. Tonight was a very good effort after that timeout.”
From that moment on, Starkville dominated the backboards to allow them to pull away.
Starkville senior guard Brittany Brown led the Lady Jackets with a game-high 20 points and point guard Janay Townsell added 11.
With 2 minutes, 30 seconds left in the game, SHS (4-2) turned a 7-point advantage into a comfortable after ending the contest on a 12-5 run.
West Point coach Murray Woody said he wasn’t disappointed in the offensive execution of his squad because it simply failed to box out the bigger front line of Starkville.
“We were competitive and hustled but we had way too many unforced turnovers and they killed us on the offensive glass,” Woody said. “It was like they were shooting till they made it every time down.”
The Green Wave (4-3) were led by senior Wilma Davis’ 15 points. West Point used full-court pressure that bothered Starkville.
“I would’ve come out full court earlier but I’m not very deep right now and I just didn’t want to run out of gas near the end,” Woody said.
Columbus sweeps
Columbus won a pair of Class 6A, Region 2 games from visiting Grenada Friday.
The Falcons (3-4, 1-0) won their second overtime game of the week, knocking off the Chargers 54-53 in overtime.
“We did the things that we needed to do,” Columbus coach Sammy Smith said. “One day they will be able to play without me dictating everything.
“We were ahead for most of the game but once we fell behind, we didn’t panic.”
Deontae Jones led Columbus with 19 points. Devin Barry had 12 points and C.J. Scott had 10 points.
The Columbus girls won 64-26.
Maggie Proffitt led the Lady Falcons (5-1, 1-0) with 25 points, while Kiandria Patterson added 15 points.
ICCE defeats Manchester
STEENS — Darius Jones scored a team-high 21 points Thursday to lead the Immanuel Christian boys basketball team to a 65-47 victory against Manchester.
Jones also had four rebounds, three assists, and three steals to help the Rams improve to 7-1.
Jason Davis had 14 points, seven rebounds, and three steals, Ross Moore had 14 points and six rebounds, Christian Good had eight points and two rebounds, Jordan Miller had five points, and A.J. Johnston had two points, four rebounds, and three assists.
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