Porters Chapel Academy played a tight, competitive ballgame against Veritas on Thursday night.

For about three minutes.

PCA finished the first quarter with a 23-0 run, ripped off 30 straight points before clearing its bench, and put it on cruise control after that to coast to a 73-37 victory.

All 10 players on PCA’s roster scored, led by Peter Harris with 16 points and Ted Brisco with 11. Talbot Buys had eight points and 11 rebounds, while Harris had five steals. As a team, the Eagles had 10 steals in the first quarter alone and totaled 18 for the game.

Jared Robinson led Veritas with 14 points.

“I was just glad we started off strong. It’s the only game we started off the first quarter playing well,” said PCA coach E.J. Creel, whose team improved to 8-1 overall and remained undefeated in District 4-A with a 5-0 record. “We’re becoming a little more disciplined. We played six games in eight days, with two practices. I am looking forward to next week to adjust some things.”

After that grind, Thursday’s game offered a chance to have some fun.

Robinson hit a 3-pointer for Veritas to cut its early deficit to 6-5 with about 5 ½ minutes to go in the first quarter. Then PCA turned up the defense and left the Lions (2-5, 0-3) in the dust.

Led by Harris, the Eagles converted steal after steal into easy layups. They hit 14 of 20 shots in the period and led 29-5 when the buzzer sounded. The starters stretched the lead to 36-5 before Creel cleared the bench and went with Buys and four seldom-used backups for most of the second quarter. The same group played most of the fourth quarter as well.

Veritas trimmed the 31-point deficit to 22 at halftime, but never threatened to get back in the game. The only drama that remained was whether any of PCA’s starters could throw down a dunk before they were pulled for good.

Brisco came close, but clanged it off the rim twice on drives to the hoop. Alton Burden and P.J. Lassiter both settled for finger rolls when they had a clear shot. The lack of a crowd-pleasing jam was the only disappointing thing for the Eagles.

“You get to joke around, try to dunk, let everybody have fun and everybody gets to play,” Brisco said, adding with a laugh, “I can (dunk). I just got the ball too late. I need the ball at the 3-point line to get up some speed.”