The South Pike Eagles came to Sinclair Gymnasium Friday for abasketball tripleheader. The Pike County visitors had to fight fortheir roundball lives, narrowly escaping Lincoln County with threewins.

The South Pike Lady Eagles used a balanced scoring attack toease by the Brookhaven Lady Panthers 39-36. South Pike’s PhilipBrown sacked 5 of 6 free throws in the final minutes and the Eaglesrealized a hard-fought 75-72 win over the Brookhaven Panthers.

South Pike squeaked by Brookhaven 37-36 in the preliminary JVboys game.

Brookhaven returns to action Friday at Loyd Star. Thetripleheader tips off at 5 p.m. with a JV boys game.

South Pike 39, Brookhaven 36

Both girls teams shot 34 percent from the field for the game.Baskets were at a minimum, as evident by the 6-all deadlockentering the second frame and 15-all at halftime.

South Pike used a 12-4 third stanza to take a 27-19 lead intothe fourth quarter. Ole Brook, coached by Billy Holmes, outscoredSouth Pike 17-12 in the fourth but was unable to put the ball inthe basket in the waning moments.

Taylor’s squad got 6 points apiece from Dominique Brumfield,Te’Keya Felder, Kierra Addison and Ivielle Stewart netted 6. TheLady Eagles held a decisive 30-25 advantage on the boards.

Ole Brook got a game-high 20 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blockedshots from sophomore forward Swayze Black. Portia Dickey had 3steals and 4 assists.

South Pike 75, Brookhaven 72

In the narrow 3-point loss, the Panthers (1-10) played one oftheir better games of the early season; especially in the secondhalf.

South Pike, coached by Joe Taylor, led 25-10 after one periodand 40-25 at the intermission break. The Eagles opened the game byhitting their first 8 shots and finished the first half shooting 49percent overall from the field (49 percent).

While Taylor’s ballclub cooled off, Ole Brook caught fire in thesecond half after trailing by as many as 17 points. The Panthersoutscored South Pike 47-35 in the half on 16 of 30 (52 percent)shooting; including 4 of 6 from 3-point range.

Brookhaven head coach Ronald Hines saw his ballclub take itsfirst lead of the game with 4:05 left in the clock at 61-60, on alayup by Bobo Rancifer. Rancifer, who came into the game averagingjust under 21 points a game, pumped in a game-high 31 points; alongwith 13 rebounds and 4 assists.

The lead see-sawed back and forth. The Panthers cut theirdeficit to a single point at 71-70. With fewer than 17 ticks lefton the clock, Ole Brook called a timeout to set their defense.Brookhaven was whistled for a technical, because the Panthers didnot have any more timeouts. Brown sacked the technical free throwsto make it 73-70.

Both teams traded baskets to round out the scoring.

Brown pumped in a team-high 24 points (3 treys), leading 4Eagles in double figures. Reginald Magee had 13 points, followed byBrandon Duplesis with 12 and Tristan Cook with 11.

Supporting Rancifer were Tory Richardson with 14 points andMichael Washington with 12. Antwan Bryant had 2 steals and 4assists. Simmie Yarborough had 8 rebounds. Jerome Avery dished out4 assists and had 7 rebounds.

In the JV boys game, Brookhaven got 10 pointsfrom Keenan Richardson. Sedrick Brown tossed in a game-high 20points for South Pike.