Rock Hill basketball teams take early leads, escape with two wins over Nation Ford

Both Rock Hill basketball teams opened region play the way they wanted to.

The Rock Hill boys’ and girls’ basketball teams defeated the Falcons on Tuesday night. The Bearcat girls won rather easily, 59-34, while the boys’ team staved off a ferocious comeback from Nation Ford and narrowly won, 62-60.

In the girls’ game, Rock Hill (12-5, 1-0) was led by Jada Jones and Unique Burch, who each scored 16 points. They pulled away with two big quarters. The Bearcats outscored Nation Ford, 24-5, in the second quarter and 20-4 in the fourth quarter. With the loss, Nation Ford fell to 9-8 overall and 0-1 in region play.

“We got a lot of opportunities to get transition points,” Rock Hill head coach Kenny Orr said. “We are learning to know when to be more aggressive.”

Rock Hill trailed, 14-9, after the first quarter, but hit on nine of 15 shots in the second to take a 33-19 lead at the half. Nation Ford battled back in the third quarter and made a game of it — trailing by only nine at 39-30 with the help of an 11-1 run to start the quarter.

Nation Ford’s Kelci Adams led the Falcons and all scorers with 18 points — 10 of which coming in the third. However, the fourth quarter saw Rock Hill start things off with a 5-0 run, and the Bearcats didn’t look back.

In the final quarter, Rock Hill used its quickness and was able to penetrate the lane and get easy looks at the basket. Jones and Burch combined to score 11 of the 20 fourth quarter points for the Bearcats.

Nation Ford head coach Coretta Richmond said it was a hard loss for her team to open region play with.

“It is early,” she said. “We still have a chance. We have to coach them hard. We have to find that missing element. We are going to fix things.”

Boys: Rock Hill 62, Nation Ford 60

The Bearcats’ boys’ team (9-5, 1-0) held off a Nation Ford (7-10, 0-1) rally in the fourth quarter as the Falcons twice took the lead in the final period before falling to Rock Hill.

Rock Hill was led by sophomore Shane Blakeney, who hit three 3-pointers in the final quarter and scored 23 points on the night to help give the Bearcats the win on the road.

“He has a green light from me,” Rock Hill head coach Douglas Pearson said of Blakeney. “If he sees the first two go in, it is like throwing a rock in the ocean for him.”

The Bearcats were consistent for most of the game, scoring 17 points in each of the first three quarters. But the team struggled some in the fourth as it entered the final period up, 51-41. Nation Ford opened the quarter on a 9-0 run before the Bearcats called a time out to regroup.

The Falcons were led by Petey Tuipulotu, who scored 24 points in the loss. Nation Ford and Rock Hill set a frantic pace to open the game, but poor ball handing allowed the Bearcats to start pulling away in the second quarter.

“We had too many turnovers in the first half,” Nation Ford head coach Jared Adamson said. “We need to be tougher. We didn’t handle pressure well.”

Rock Hill took a nine-point lead into the half, but again, Nation Ford kept pace with them in the third quarter before going on a run in the final period.

The Falcons now turn their attention to Clover as they host them in their next region game on Friday night. They then travel to Northwestern on Jan. 22 for their first region road game.

Rock Hill will host Fort Mill in its second region game on Friday night.

Mac Banks: mbanks@comporium.net, @MacBanksFM

This story was originally published January 15, 2020 at 9:07 AM.