ROMNEY, W.Va. — In a battle of the area’s top two ranked teams, No. 2 Southern proved why they deserve the top spot.
Behind a dominant defensive effort and balanced scoring attack, the Rams (6-2) cruised to a 68-52 victory at top-ranked Hampshire on Tuesday.
“I thought we played with intensity the entire time defensively,” Southern head coach Hunter Broadwater said. “We were a lot better defensively than we were last week, we put a major emphasis on that yesterday.”
The Trojans (5-3) took an early 6-0 lead on a pair of triples from Izaiah Thorpe.
Thorpe finished with 12 points off four 3-pointers.
Southern responded with a 9-3 run led by Brayden Upole who hit a pair of triples that put the Rams in front for good with 3:28 remaining in the opening quarter.
“Tough game, unfortunate, but they played well,” Hampshire head coach Danny Alkire said. “We weren’t ready to come out in the first half and they got us.”
Upole finished with 16 points, five assists and three steals.
Southern ended the quarter on a 8-1 run and led 17-10 after a pair of steals from Graham Harvey in the final minute.
Harvey scored 15 points with five steals.
“They can score all the time, so the good thing with our team is we can spread the scoring out a little,” Broadwater said of Upole and Harvey. “We don’t always need to rely on Jared (Haskiell) like we have in some games.”
The second quarter is where the Rams took complete control.
After forcing seven turnovers in the first quarter, Southern forced eight in the second quarter.
“We forced a lot of turnovers, we forced them into bad passes,” Broadwater said. “We kept them out of the paint for the most part. And if they did get in the paint, we stayed down, contained them. They didn’t have much out of it.”
The Rams scored 12 of its 20 second quarter points off turnovers.
Of Southern’s 37 first-half points, 16 came off turnovers (43%).
“I don’t know, I’ll have to watch the film, but that was not like us,” Alkire said of what caused the turnovers. “We’ve made turnovers, but they shot great. And then on top of that, turning the ball over just gave them that many more opportunities. We were just throwing the ball right to them.”
Southern recorded 11 steals in the first half with Harvey swiping four and Upole and Jacob Brown adding three each.
The Rams led 37-20 at halftime after shooting 14 of 24 (58%) from the field and 5 of 9 (56%) from deep compared to Hampshire’s 8 of 19 (42%) from the field and 3 of 7 (43%) from beyond the arc.
The Trojans opened the second half on a 11-3 run led by Ethan Vanmeter who hit three shots from beyond the arc.
Vanmeter’s third triple of the quarter cut Hampshire’s deficit to 40-31 with 4:44 left in the frame.
“We came out with a lineup that we never had, we started small, we went pressure,” Alkire said of what changed. “That was the reason we got back in.”
Southern answered with a 13-5 run to end the quarter as Upole hit a pair of triples and Jacob Brown picked up a pair of assists with a layup.
The Rams led 53-36 after three quarters and led by double figures the rest of the night.
“Once you get frustrated, you get down, you start forcing things, making mistakes,” Alkire said. “When we get mad, we don’t think rationally. Regardless of if it’s basketball or not, we just weren’t in the moment.”
A steal from Adrian Litchfield turned into a layup for Trenton Timbrook with 3:35 to play, cutting the Trojan deficit to 60-48.
That was the closest Hampshire got to a comeback as Southern outscored them 8-4 to end the game.
Entering Tuesday, Haskiell led the area with four made 3-pointers per game.
He only hit one against Hampshire, but still finished as the game’s leading scorer with 22 points, shooting 9 for 13 at the charity stripe.
“That helps a lot, it definitely takes some pressure off Jared when they try and stay right up on him,” Broadwater said of how balanced scoring benefits Haskiell. “If we get more people scoring like we did tonight with Graham and Brayden, they’re gonna start sagging off. They can’t just key in on Jared.”
Hampshire won the junior varsity game 55-31 led by Colson Kinser’s 10 points.
The Trojans played 13 players in the junior varsity game and all 13 scored.
Will Dixon led Southern with eight points.
Both teams are at home for its next game as Southern faces Broadfording on Thursday at 7:30 p.m. while Hampshire plays Berkeley Springs on Friday at 7:30 p.m.