In her first home game as Warren Central’s new girls head coach, Jackie Martin-Glass found success.

The Lady Vikes pressed and ran their way to a 70-46 win over Port Gibson Tuesday in the opening night of the Vicksburg-Warren Tournament.

Glass was pleased with how the Lady Vikes bounced back from Saturday’s 42-30 loss to Bay St. Louis in the Ocean Springs Classic. And it was doubly nice to get her first win out of the way.

“It felt pretty good to get that first win as a head coach and it came against a town where I played my first ball in and grew up in,” Martin-Glass said. “We played hard. We were all pretty excited to be playing in front of family and friends. We came out and got a big lead and then started taking too many outside shots and Port Gibson was able to score in transition and get back in the game.”

Warren Central (1-1) broke out to a 17-0 lead behind a withering, full-court zone press. The Blue Waves (0-1) had seven turnovers in the first three minutes.

“We play young and we just blow up because we’re young,” Port Gibson coach Harold Liggins said. “We start three 10th graders and two ninth graders.”

WC led 24-8 after one quarter, but then slowed down behind poor perimeter shooting.

“We just wanted to run and shoot too much. We didn’t play team ball,” said Lady Vikes point guard Sh’Qulla Neal.

Port Gibson outscored the Lady Vikes 13-10 in the second quarter to pull within 34-21 by the half.

The second half was a different story as WC started playing “team ball.”

Neal had six of her game-high 10 assists in the third quarter as WC executed an efficient motion offense. Kiera Moore was the beneficiary, scoring 11 of her 18 points in the quarter as WC boosted the lead out to 26 points at 56-30.

“We calmed down. We ran our plays right and we learned from our mistakes,” Neal said. She finished with six points and five rebounds.

“We were much more patient and we got the ball inside,” Martin-Glass said.

A 3-pointer by Ricille Davis with 50 seconds left gave WC its largest lead at 70-40.

Davis ended with 10 points despite getting four fouls in the first 12 minutes. Eatmon had 16 points and six assists.

Ra’Gee McDonald led Port Gibson with 14 points.

(B) Warren Central 64, Port Gibson 57

Jeremy Harper scored 10 of his game-best 20 points in the fourth quarter to lead the Vikings to their first win of the season in the Vicksburg-Warren Tournament.

Harper hit five straight free throws during one stretch of the fourth quarter as the Vikings went up by 10. Port Gibson pulled back to within five at 62-57 following a 3-pointer by Keith Barnes with 39 seconds left. A wide-open basket by Josh Malone sealed it for WC in the final 20 seconds.

Eric Hall had 16 points for WC and Malone ended with eight. WC hosts Natchez in the tourney’s second night of action Thursday.

Port Gibson was led by Barnes’ 17 points and Devin Flowers had 13. In other action Tuesday, the Wingfield boys blew out Canton 94-60. Wingfield will play Port Gibson on Thursday.

*

Contact Jeff Byrd at jbyrd@vicksburgpost.com