SOSO — All Oak Grove needed was one quarter to get past West Jones.
Behind the play of Chase Pinkston and P.J. Woodland the Warriors scored 26 points in the third quarter that propelled Oak Grove to a convincing 77-50 win over West Jones to claim the West Jones Alfa Christmas Tournament Championship on Thursday night.
"We talked about at halftime that we had to attack the game like it was 0-0 and start the third quarter as hard as we could and try to put the game away early, and the guys did that," Oak Grove coach LaRon Brumfield said. "We've been focusing on being balanced as far as scoring wise, and we got a lot of weapons. We've to got utilize them, and it's taken them some time to get used to doing that."
Oak Grove (9-5) never trailed the entire game.
The Warriors held an 18-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
West Jones cut the lead down to one at 19-18 midway through the second quarter, but Oak Grove went on a 12-2 run to close out the first half to take a 31-20 lead at halftime.
Pinkston scored the Warriors' first nine points of the third quarter to extend the Oak Grove lead out to 40-23. From that point on, the Warriors lead never got below 17 points.
"Games like this are good even if the score is lopsided," Brumfield said. "This is a tough environment on the road, so it was a good experience."
Pinkston had a game-high 17 points to lead Oak Grove, while Woodland added 16 points for the Warriors. Chaz Oatis also chipped in 10 points for Oak Grove.
"We played great," Woodland said. "We came out with a lot of energy and high intensity, had some good shots, played at a fast pace, and focused on defense. Defense wins games and championships, so that's what we did. We had to step up. The third quarter was big with us playing with a lot of energy, matching them and making shots."
Marlon Lindsey and Marsa Watson each had 10 points to lead West Jones. Kennon Loftin added eight points for the Mustangs (7-9).
"Third quarter has been our Achilles heel all season, and we got to figure out how to fix it," West Jones coach Regis Huddleston said. "They did what they wanted to do tonight, and we couldn't stop them."
