By Staff
Scot Beard
THARPTOWN – The Tharptown boys basketball team won its first game of the season Tuesday by defeating Vina 64-53.
Manny Ricardo led the way with 16 points and 22 rebounds for the Wildcats.
"I've experimented by moving Manny to guard, but i moved him back to the post tonight," said Tharptown coach Jonathan Odom.
The Wildcats trailed 33-25 at halftime but battled back to take a 39-38 lead heading into the final quarter.
Tharptown opened the fourth quarter with a 6-0 run to pull away for good.
"We turned up the intensity on defense (in the second half)," said Odom. "We wore them out and didn't give them open shots like we did in the first half."
Jacob Parker added 14 points and three rebounds for the Wildcats while Trevor Hallmark added 10 points and three rebounds.
Vina had three players reach double-digit scoring. Cass White led the Red Devils with 15 points and eight rebounds while Morgan McCarley scored 13.
Patrick White had 11 points and nine rebounds.
Tharptown 72,
Vina 39
The Lady Wildcats had two players record double-doubles as Tharptown defeated Vina 72-39.
Autumn Hatton had 18 points and grabbed 19 rebounds while Hollie Hines scored 10 and pulled down 10 rebounds.
The Lady Wildcats jumped out to a 19-7 lead after the first quarter and never looked back.
Chelsea McCluskey added 23 points and Kendra Baker grabbed 23 rebounds for Tharptown.
Jesse Norwood led the Lady Red Devils with 16 points while Devyn Childers added 11 points.