By MAURICE SINGLETON/Sports Writer

BAY ST. LOUIS – West Harrison (11-6, 3-1) overcame a scoreless second quarter and being down by as many as ten points in the third quarter to rally in the fourth quarter to secure a 35-27 comeback win over St. Stanislaus (10-10, 2-0) on Saturday.

The Hurricanes scored 18 fourth-quarter points after only putting up 17 points in the first three quarters combined. The Hurricanes’ defense also played big in the fourth quarter, holding the Rock-a-chaws to a single point in the period.

“We hadn’t played during the Christmas break, and you could tell that our guys were not comfortable with the open shots,” said Hurricanes’ coach Jeff Norwood. “And they took a shot, and it didn’t go, we just kind of stopped.

“I’m very proud of them for doing what they had to do for us to win the basketball game,” said Norwood. “I think I just started urging them on a little bit because I realized that we weren’t playing hard enough. I think part of our problem was because we hadn’t played, we were a little out of game shape.”

The Hurricanes led 9-5 at the end of the first quarter, and they were held scoreless in the second quarter as they trailed 11-9 at halftime.

The Rocks came out firing in the third quarter, putting up 15 points in the period, and going up by as many as ten points (22-12) with just under two minutes remaining in the period. They would put four more points in the quarter to take a 9-point lead (26-17) as the end of three quarters.

But they would cool down in the fourth quarter, scoring a single free throw in the period as Isaiah Haynes scored the second of two free throw attempts with just under two minutes remaining in the game. The Hurricanes’ defense also pressured the Rocks into 12 turnovers in the period, resulting in 13 of their 18 fourth quarter points.

“It was a tale of two halves,” said St. Stanislaus coach Danny Grieves. “We were very locked in and had good communication. We rotated very well. They are a very good three-point shooting team. They have the capacity to score a lot of points very quickly. We were able to help to kind of limit them because we tried to make sure that every time they had a shot, there was a hand in their face or somebody rotating to contest. 

“By the end of the game, we stopped being able to pay attention as much,” said Grieves. “The mental mistakes really broke down. It was very evident, when we are locked in, we’re able to kind of hold them, and pretty much anybody, to a bad shooting percentage.”

Javon McCaleb led West Harrison with 11 points, followed by Jamarcus McCaleb with 10 points.

Levi Greene led St. Stanislaus scoring with 7 points. Max Baria added 5 points.

West Harrison resumes play on Tuesday as they host Pascagoula in a district matchup. St. Stanislaus hosts West Marion in a district matchup next Friday.