McCOMB – The Quitman Panthers defeated the Lawrence County Cougars 66-48 in the opening round of the Boys South State 4A Basketball Tournament, at McComb High School. With the win, Quitman improved to 24-7 on the season, and needs just one more win, in a Friday semi-final game, to secure a trip to the state tournament in the Mississippi Coliseum.

Lawrence County, coached by Pat Bridges, ended its season at 13-19. The Cougars earned their way into the tournament with an opening-round win over Pass Christian on Tuesday.

“I’m proud of the season we had,” Bridges said, “proud of the way this team improved in the last half of the season. Obviously, we’re disappointed that we weren’t able to go farther, but we had a good run late in the year. We hope to build on that in the coming years.”

Quitman, coached by Chris Coleman, carved out a 31-23 halftime lead, then increased that margin to 12 points, at 51-39, in the third quarter. Lawrence County cut the margin to 10 early in the second quarter, but gave up two quick baskets after that, sealing the Cougars’ fate.

Darius Hicks led Quitman with 20 points. Jadarius Avery and Anterio McKiney each scored 12 points.

Freshman center Keyshawn Feazell led Lawrence County with 13 points. Gabriel Lewis and Keith Davis each tallied 11 points, and Gaylon Pittman had 9. Phillip Moore led in rebounding with 6, and handed out 8 assists.

On a positive note for the youthful Cougars, all five LCHS players who scored in the game, will return next season. In fact, four of the five will still be high schoolers two seasons from now.

Simply put, Quitman out shot Lawrence County on Thursday. The Panthers shot a whopping 67 percent on 2-point attempts, while LCHS connected on just 12 of 32 2-pointers, for 38 percent.