It wasn’t quite as dominant as their last performance against Oak Grove, but Petal got the job done against their rival Monday night, opening the Region 5-6A tournament with a 50-38 win over the Warriors and securing a playoff spot in the process.
Just three weeks ago, the Panthers (16-4) won the second meeting of the season by nearly 40 points. Petal head coach Todd Kimble expected a much more competitive game the third go-round.
“Tournament time everybody’s going to play well,” Kimble said. “I told my guys, ‘I’m telling ya, Oak Grove’s going to play good. They’re going to play better than they played both times we played them’. I thought they did tonight.”
Kimbles’ Panthers jumped out to a 16-6 lead heading to Monday’s second quarter and maintained that double digit lead at the half, leading 24-11.
“The first quarter was great. At halftime, we’d given up 11 points, but look at the offensive side,” Kimble said. “We’re not scoring, and that’s because of what they [Oak Grove] did. I thought we did a great job in the first half of not giving them second shots.
“The second half, I didn’t think we did.”
The closest Oak Grove got to within Petal the rest of the way was nine points, and that was just minutes into the second half. A pair of Tate Ryder three-pointers kept the Warriors alive, albeit briefly, in the fourth quarter, but the Panthers answered at the free throw line, knocking down eight straight at the charity stripe in the final minutes.
Senior point guard Mykah Brown connected on six of those made free throws and finished with a game-high 18 points.
“You want the ball in your point guard’s hands in those situations,” Kimble said. “He [Brown] missed a couple, and then I think he made four or six in a row at the end. He did it when we had to have it.”
Treylan Smith added 13 points for the Panthers, who will face Meridian Friday night at 8:30 pm for the Region 5-6A Championship at Oak Grove. Kimble knows his team will have to play much better than they did Monday night in order to knock off the Wildcats, who swept the Panthers in the regular season.
“Meridian’s the number one team in the state for a reason,” Kimble said. “They’ve got the most talent of anybody in the state.
“You’re not going to play a perfect basketball game, but you can’t give a team like Meridian easy stuff. You give them easy stuff, you’re going to be in trouble.”
On the other side, Oak Grove will have to beat George County Friday night in order to secure a playoff berth. The Warriors (14-13) are scheduled to tip-off with the Rebels at 5:30 pm at Oak Grove.
