TUPELO – Jamarion Jones was made for games like this.
Jones’ 19 points led the way for No. 5 Tupelo in a physical, intense 53-43 win over region rival No. 2 Starkville at home Tuesday night. Tupelo entered the fourth quarter with a four-point lead and pulled away from the Yellow Jackets in the end.
“He’s one of those players, if it’s not his day, it’s not because of effort,” Tupelo head coach Robert Green said. “He’s going to play hard, he’s going to give you every single drop. He’s going to get an ice bath tomorrow, he’s going to be doing extra stretching, he’s going to be getting his hydration because he knows how to play one way – and that’s hard.”
Neither team budged much defensively, and it was all tied up at 21 at halftime. Jones had five points after two quarters, and he turned it on in the second half.
He had six in the third quarter to help give Tupelo (13-5, 3-1 Region 2-7A) the lead heading into the fourth. Jones added another eight in the fourth quarter, including a three and another two on a difficult finish at the basket.
“I was just driving to the rim, and some of my threes were falling,” Jones said.
Tupelo outscored Starkville (18-5, 3-2) 17-11 in the fourth quarter to put the Yellow Jackets away.
“It’s a tremendous win,” Green said. “It’s at home, we needed this win. Again, we lost our first district game of the year. We didn’t play Germantown last week because of the weather. So for us to be off all these days and coming here and getting this win, it’s definitely tremendous.”
Starkville head coach Anthony Carlyle had a feeling this was coming after watching how his team was playing. He had seen some shortcomings recently despite Starkville’s excellent start to the season.
“Sometimes when you’re winning, there’s a certain thing you need your guys to correct, but it’s hard to get them corrected when you’re winning,” he said. “We just kind of knew our inability to consistently box out and rebound the basketball for 32 minutes was going to catch up to us once we played somebody that has size and toughness.”
Starkville girls 51, Tupelo 48
No. 1 Tupelo (18-2, 3-1) suffered its first loss to an in-state opponent this season, although the Golden Wave were still without injured star Jade Rucker. Zariyah Edwards led Starkville (16-5, 5-0) with 20 points in the win.
Three-Pointers
Turning Point: Tupelo pulled away from Starkville late after outscoring the Yellow Jackets 17-11 in the fourth quarter.
Point Maker: Jones led Tupelo with 19 points, including a pair of treys.
Talking Point: “I think we battled, they battled. And at the end, fourth quarter, shots just fell for us tonight. They didn’t fall for them, so that’s all.” – Green
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