[12/7/01]The Porters Chapel Academy Eagles are quickly reaching the point where close losses stop being encouraging moral victories and start being plain frustrating.

PCA quickly squandered a six-point halftime lead against Central Hinds Thursday night by committing 11 turnovers in the third quarter and shooting just 12-for-25 from the free-throw line in a 47-42 loss.

“We just went brain-dead,” PCA coach Roger Browning said of the third period, in which the Eagles were outscored 18-5. “We stopped running our offense, stopped playing defense, started making turnovers and stopped making shots. Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong.”

It was PCA’s third straight loss by five points or less, and all three have involved similar stretches of bad play that overshadowed an effort that should have been good enough to win.

Joseph Ivey scored a game-high 29 points for PCA and the Eagles shot 48 percent from the field, while holding Central Hinds (4-2) to 36 percent shooting and forcing 19 turnovers. Central Hinds hit only 10 of 28 free throws.

“The turnovers are killing us,” Browning said.

Ivey scored 17 of his points in the first half as Central Hinds shot just 8-for-28 from the floor in the first half and PCA built a 23-17 lead.

PCA fell apart in the third quarter, however, throwing ill-advised passes, faltering on defense and getting worked over on the boards.

“We just felt like we needed to run them a little more and press them full court,” Central Hinds coach Shelby Watts said.

The Eagles didn’t make a field goal for the first six minutes of the quarter, mainly because they turned it over before they could get a shot off. Ivey faced constant double- and triple-teams.

Ivey hit seven of his first eight shots, but was just 4-for-8 in the second half and had two other shots blocked. He also struggled from the free throw line, hitting only 5 of 14.

Central Hinds took the lead with an 11-1 run to open the second half and never trailed again. PCA collected itself enough to make a small run and cut it to 37-33 early in the fourth quarter, but the Cougars answered with a 7-0 run to push the lead back to double-digits, 44-33, with 3:21 to play.

The Eagles made one last run, outscoring the Cougars 7-1 over the final 2:17, but it was too late to overcome the deficit.

“We were very fortunate,” Watts said. “Porters Chapel played well and it made us play bad.”

Neon Shive led three Central Hinds players in double figures with 12 points. Hays Chance added 10 points and John Bishop had 11 points and seven rebounds. Andrew Embry had seven rebounds and six assists for PCA.

PCA 64, C. Hinds 47

Central Hinds has been a solid so far this season except when it plays Porters Chapel Academy.

Jessica Lord scored 14 of her game-high 21 points in the second half as PCA pulled away and beat the Lady Cougars (7-3) for the second time this season, 64-47 on Thursday.

“They did some adjustments on defense and then (Lord) hurt us on the lob passes,” Central Hinds coach Chris Perritt said. “They’ve got our number. They’ve had our number for the last five years.”

K.K. Willis added 14 points and six assists for PCA, while Kayla Barnette had 11 points and Brady Willis had eight points and eight rebounds.

Ashley Murphy led Central Hinds with 15 points and seven rebounds, while Mandy Whitehead added 10 points and Adrienne Deviney had eight rebounds.

Barnette hit a pair of early 3-pointers to spark a 13-3 PCA run that opened a 10-point lead.

“I felt like my confidence was coming back tonight, since I was hearing people say that I didn’t have any confidence,” said Barnette, who was 3-for-4 from 3-point range.

Central Hinds rallied, however, cutting it to 31-30 at halftime despite hitting only 2 of 9 shots in the second period. The Lady Cougars scored 10 of their 14 points in the second quarter from the foul line as whistles blew on nearly every trip down the floor. The teams combined to shoot 19 free throws in the second quarter.

“We set out to try to get them in foul trouble. We knew we’d have to get them to back off to be successful against their man-to-man defense,” Perritt said. “They adjusted in the third quarter and we didn’t hit any shots.”

CHA was just 2-for-13 from the floor in the third quarter, allowing PCA to open a double-digit lead. The Lady Eagles went up 8-2 over the first five minutes of the third and increased the lead to as many as 17 midway through the fourth.

“We made smart decisions,” PCA’s Kelly Ashley said. “We played awesome defense.”