This time a week ago, Petal was coming off a dramatic, 55-54 win over rival Oak Grove in which Panther head coach Todd Kimble said his team was “out-hustled, out-rebounded and out-everythinged”.
What a difference a week makes.
In the much-anticipated rematch Friday night at Oak Grove, Kimbles’ Panthers played what he asserts was their most-complete game of the season, a 73-36 whooping of the Warriors.
“Oak Grove’s a good basketball team. They’re well-coached,” Kimble said. “But this was big. That’s as well as we’ve played all year without a doubt. Hats off to our guys with how hard they played. That’s the thing I’ve been trying to get for four quarters. Tonight we finally got four quarters.”
It all started with defensive intensity, said Kimble. Considering Oak Grove was averaging 59 points a game and undefeated at home coming into Friday’s matchup, hard to disagree with the first-year coach. Turned out to be another season best for his Panthers.
“Our defensive effort was as good as it’s been all year,” Kimble said. “For four quarters, that’s as well as we’ve played on the defensive end all year.”
Thanks to that effort, Petal took a 27-17 lead into halftime. After that, it was pretty much over, as the Panthers outscored the Warriors 30-5 in the third quarter and 46-19 the rest of the way in cruising to the win.
“I thought this one would be just like the other one. I really did,” Kimble said. “But hey, it was tight at halftime. I felt like the second half we came out and didn’t lose that energy, which a lot of teams do. We kept that for four quarters. Play four quarters as hard as you can play? That’s all I ever ask my guys to do, and they did that tonight.”
Sophomores Treylan Smith and Caleb McGill led the way offensively for Petal, scoring 26 and 14 points, respectively. Senior Mykah Brown added 11 for the Panthers.
“Mykah Browns’ leadership on the court was huge. He was huge for us,” Kimble said. “Trey and Caleb, they didn’t quit on plays. If they missed a shot, they’d go get it. They did the dirty work tonight that I didn’t think we did last week.”
Petal improved to 12-2 with the win, their 11th in their last 12 games.
“If we can keep that intensity level where it is, and that’s hard to do, I think our confidence level is high,” Kimble added. “We got a lot of good teams in front of us, so we’ll see. You cannot play tonight and not play next week.”
Petal is back in action next Tuesday night against West Jones. Oak Grove, who fell to 10-10 with the loss, will look to bounce back against Hattiesburg.
