By CURTIS ROCKWELL/Sports Director

St. MARTIN — Last season, in the midst of a forgettable 5-21 season, the St. Martin boys basketball team didn’t record its third win until Dec. 29th.
Fast forward to the new year on the hardwood, and the Yellow Jackets have met that mark less than a week into the current campaign.
Veteran head coach Charlie Pavlus and his crew thumped visiting St. Stanislaus Monday night 51-24 to move to 3-1 on the young season. Both St. Martin squads are off to quick starts and each will head to Leakesville Tuesday night to take on home-standing Greene County.

“We’ve spent a lot of time talking about what it means to put on that St. Martin uniform,” Pavlus said, after the latest win. “As a team, we’ve went back and watched some of our biggest games over the years and the intensity it took daily to be able to not only play in those games but give ourselves a chance to win those big games.”
St. Stanislaus returns just two starters this year and the Rock–Chaws are off to a rough 0-3 start due in most part to the absence for much of the past two games of one of the aforementioned duo in 6-foot-5 junior center Max Baria.
But the road-weary Rocks, who have played all three games so far away from the friendly confines of Brother Peter Memorial Gymnasium, jumped out to a slight 10-9 lead after the first quarter Monday night thanks to a pair of big 3-pointers from Jason Forte and a pair of baskets from Raymond Ellis.

But it would be all St. Martin the rest of the way as the Yellow Jackets doubled up on SSC 8-4 in the second stanza thanks to a trey apiece from both Tyson Walker and Terrence Allen and it was 17-14 SMHS at halftime.
The third frame is where the home team really began to take command as the momentum to end the first half carried over throughout the entire second half.
St. Martin got 10 points from sophomore R.J. Keys in the third peiod and suddenly it was 42-19 heading into the fourth frame thanks in part to Jax Walker’s second 3-pointer of the game as well.
Just for good measure, Keys added seven more points in the final period and Lleyton Wilson chipped in six points as the Yellow Jackets cruised to the final count.
“I think it starts with our Point Guard Jax Walker,” Pavlus added. “I’ve challenged Jax to be the leader this program needs him to be and we watched a lot of film on some of our best players from the past 16-17 seasons. I believe those “Ghosts of St. Martin Basketball Past” have definitely had an effect.”

Keys finished with a game-high 17 points after being held scoreless in the first half to lead SMHS, while Jax Walker added 12 points and Wilson chipped in eight to the winning effort.
Wilson added a game-high seven rebounds and Jax Walker’s six assists were tops in the contest as well.
Ellis and Allan Gilliam paced the Rocks with seven points apiece.
“Along with Jax, R.J. Keys as well as Kai Vieira are returning starters that are working hard every day trying to live up to our expectations,” Pavlus concluded. “We will have around 13 guys that I truly believe can help us on any given night. These first 14 games are the experiences we need to figure out exactly who we are offensively, what are rotations and rules will be and most of the teams we have beat so far are teams that beat us last season. We’ve got a long way to go, but I’m very pleased with the start.”