Southern Wayne defeats Smithfield-Selma

By Ryan Hanchett
Published in Sports on December 14, 2013 11:16 PM

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DUDLEY -- Southern Wayne avenged an early season loss to Smithfield-Selma in impressive fashion on Friday night with a 66-58 victory.

The Saints seized the momentum from the opening tip behind a hot shooting first half from Tarvis Bradshaw, who scored 13 of his 15 points before the intermission. Southern Wayne led 22-15 after one quarter.

"The first time we played Smithfield-Selma we gave up 29 points in the first quarter," Southern Wayne head coach Dwight Smith said. "Tonight we knew we had to start better defensively and on the glass and our guys did their jobs."

Despite a clear height disadvantage, the Saints were able to keep the Spartans out of the paint most of the first half and maintained a 33-28 lead at the intermission.

In the second half the shots simply stopped falling for Southern Wayne (5-3 overall).

Smithfield-Selma battle back late in the third quarter and eventually tied the game at 49 early in the fourth. The Saints defense came through in the final minutes as a pair of turnovers by the visitors led to easy points and sealed the victory.

"I thought that our pressure was effective at times throughout the game," Smith said. "Being able to box out and grab some defensive rebounds was also big for us. (Smithfield-Selma) is a very long and athletic team so we had to box out and be fundamentally sound."

Raequan Smith paced the Spartans (3-6 overall) with 23 points. Quantez Leach and Jeffrey David each finished with 13 in the loss.

Bradshaw and Maurice Butler each tallied 15 points for the Saints. Tyaire Allen added 12 markers. Jaylen Roberts tallied seven points and nine rebounds in the win.

Southern Wayne will be the guest of C.B. Aycock on Dec. 19.