If the Vicksburg Gators see St. Stanislaus again, it’ll be at the Class 4A state tournament. On Saturday, St. Stanislaus showed it’s capable of getting there.

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The Rockachaws’ excellent man-to-man defense held Vicksburg to a season-low 25 points, and 6-foot-6 forward Daniel Grieves scored 21 points as No. 9 St. Stanislaus won handily, 46-25, in the final game of the Red Carpet Classic.

The Gators (14-6) were playing without leading scorer Kelsey Howard, but coach Dellie C. Robinson was still disturbed at how poorly his team ran his offense. Vicksburg was just 7-for-33 shooting for the game. VHS had only eight turnovers, but Stanislaus made them work for every shot and then made the Gators work even harder on the defensive end.

“We had no excuses. We broke down. When we can not get into our sets, we have a problem.” Robinson said. “We make one pass and then shoot. We try to run something through three defenders. We have to get more patient on offense. We try to do too much one-on-one stuff.”

Grieves, who is a teammate of Vicksburg phenom Mychal Ammons on the Jackson Tigers’ AAU team, had the better day. Grieves made 7 of 10 shots from the floor, had seven rebounds and was 7-of-8 from the foul line.

“With Danny having played for the Jackson Tigers, he knows Mychal and (Denzell) Erves. Plus, he’s a three-year starter even though he’s still a sophomore. When he made that dunk in the fourth quarter, that sealed it,” Stanislaus coach Jay Ladner said.

The dunk put the Rockachaws up 42-23 with four minutes to go. A big boost for the Rockachaws was Bryan Lynch who made five shots from the corner to account for 15 of his 17 points.

“No. 24 (Lynch) shot the lights out. We knew about (Pedro Maciel), but No. 24 did it to us,” Robinson said.

Ammons, who had just four points, did not score his first until the 3:10 mark in the third quarter. Two 3-pointers by Maurice Williams pulled Vicksburg to within 12 at 32-20, but the Rockachaws scored the last five points of the quarter, including another trey by Lynch for a 37-20 lead.

“We know Vicksburg has a lot of firepower and obviously we got a break when the Howard kid couldn’t play. But we guarded everybody else and we contested all the shots,” Ladner said.

VHS girls beat New Hope, 47-46

Cortni Cooper’s dash to the basket with 8.3 seconds left gave Vicksburg (9-11) a thrilling victory.

Vicksburg led for most of the game until the final three minutes. Then the lead switched hands seven times, creating the loudest noise of the day at the Gators’ gym.

Donyeah Mayfield banked in a 12-footer to give VHS a 45-44 lead with 32.5 seconds left. New Hope’s Mysheal Standford then got fouled with 15.8 seconds left. Until this point, New Hope had made just 6 of 21 free throws. Standford made both of hers to put the Lady Trojans back in front, 46-45.

Facing an inbounds situation with 13.8 seconds left, Cooper got the pass at half-court and dribbled past two defenders, toward the baseline and fired up a reverse layup. The shot went in, giving VHS the lead.

New Hope fumbled the inbounds pass in the corner and had to make a heave to get it out, but it was intercepted as the buzzer went off.

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Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com.