The Selma Times-Journal

All was going well for Morgan Academy Saturday until early in the third quarter.

That’s when the visiting Faith Academy Rams did something scary – they stopped shooting.

The Rams (6-2) played keepaway for most of the second half – rendering Morgan’s zone defense useless – and pulled away for a 59-48 win.

“That did scare me a little because they do a really good job of handling the ball,” Morgan coach Lee Tate said. “We knew we had to go to man-to-man defense and try to force some turnovers. Their team is really disciplined, and they’re well coached. My guys played hard, (Faith) is just very athletic and we couldn’t keep up with them.”

Hunter Lee led four Faith players in double-figure scoring with 15 points. Chris Bunce had 14, Keandre Niles had 12 and Michael Pierce had 11.

Chris Warrington led Morgan with 14.

Tate said before the game he hoped his team had enough gas after pulling out a four-point victory over Cottage Hill the night before.

The Senators (9-3) rallied with seven unanswered points to go into halftime down 37-31.

Then the Rams pulled the plug on their offense. They forced Morgan’s defense to play above the arc for the rest of the game, which resulted in easy baskets down low. The result was a 6-0 run that extended the lead to 43-31 to start the third.

Playing without the zone scheme that forced turnovers and easy buckets early, Morgan went scoreless for the first three minutes of the third quarter.

Weston Mason and Heath Harrelson hit back-to-back layups to cut the lead to seven with 4:40 to play, but Faith didn’t let them any closer.