Wildcats bomb Rangers 75-59 at MACJC State Tournament

FULTON Pearl River Wildcats easily disposed of Northwest Mississippi Rangers here Monday in the quarter-final round of the MACJC State Tournament underway at Itawamba CC and now moves on to Wednesday 3 p.m. men semi-finals battle against East Mississippi.PRCC, the MACJC South Division No. 2 seed, trailed North No. 3 NWCC 28-27 at the half, but dominated the last 13 minutes of the contest to take a lopsided 75-59 victory.North No. 1 East Miss opened the day action against South No. 4 Jones County and bombarded the Bobcats 103-70.In Pearl River match up, the score was tied seven times and the lead exchanged hands four times in the first half. Daterris Rogers was fouled attempting a trey at the 12:44 mark and sank all three free throws to snap a 13-13 stalemate and Yondarius Johnson banged in two more foul shots a minute later to make it 18-13 PRCC, but those were the last Wildcat points for the next seven-plus minutes.Meanwhile, Northwest regained the lead at 19-18 when DeMarcus McVay pulled off a three-point play at the 8:37 mark. Just under four minutes later, Tevin Moore basket capped a 13-0 Ranger run to give NWCC a 26-18 lead its largest of the game.Pearl River closed out the half with a 7-2 scoring run to cut Northwest lead to 28-27 at the intermission.In the second half, the Wildcats opened with a 16-12 scoring surge to go up 43-40 and The River never looked back. Josh Carpenter three pointer capped the run and PRCC went on to build its lead to as many as 21 points 66-45 with 6:10 left.From that point, Northwest outscored Pearl River 14-9 only to come up 17 points shy of victory.Everick Morris paced the Rangers with 19 points (4 assists), while McVay added 13 (eight rebounds), Dominque Harris (five rebounds) and Darius Woods (three steals), eight each; Kenyatta Jones five, Jordan Hulsey four (eight rebounds), and Tevin Moore two.Quentin Watkins out of Lanier High in Jackson led the Wildcats with a game-high 21 points (five rebounds, two treys, three assists, two steals), while Zane Knowles, a Grambling State (La.) transfer from Nassau, Bahamas, added 18 (11 rebounds), Daron Bell of Bay High 10 (10 rebounds), Josh Carpenter of Oak Grove High nine (five assists, two treys), Johnson, another Grambling transfer who hails from Plain Dealing, La., nine (five rebounds); Rogers of Wayne County High four, Jyrus Carriere out of St. Martin High in Biloxi and Marcus Rawls of Picayune High, two each.Northwest hit 50 percent (eight of 16) at the foul line to Pearl River 79.2 percent (19 of 24), while the Rangers were 23 of 64 (35.9 percent) from the field to the Wildcats 26-of-61 (42.6 percent) effort. From three-point range, NWCC was five of 25 (20 percent), while PRCC was four of 18 (22.2 percent).The River dominated the boards with 46 rebounds (16 offensive, 30 defensive) to Northwest 37 (15 offensive, 22 defensive), while the Wildcats committed 15 turnovers to the Rangers 14.Pearl River Lady Wildcats, the South Division No. 2 women seed, takes on North No. 3 Coahoma at 8 p.m. Tuesday in the women quarter-finals.