ST. PAULS — Both teams entered on four-game losing streaks, searching for answers.

Red Springs was the one that finally looked like what it knows it can be.

The Red Devils opened Southeastern Athletic Conference play Wednesday with a nearly wire-to-wire road win over rival St. Pauls, winning the contest 54-38.

“The guys came back hungry,” Red Springs coach Glenn Patterson Jr. said. “We’ve been trying to fight for a win for a few games, and we still had vengeance from the Shootout (loss to St. Pauls) and the guys were hungry. … Guys came out and really executed the game plan. Our post guys came in and played big, Tim Hammonds brought the energy and took a couple charges on Tyson (Thompson) and got him in trouble early. That was big. And then the rest of the posts followed suit.”

Red Springs (6-9, 1-0 Southeastern) certainly had on its mind a 48-46 loss to St. Pauls (7-8, 0-1 Southeastern) when the teams last met 25 days earlier in the third-place game of the Robeson County Shootout, a game where the Red Devils led most of the way and had a four-point advantage inside the final five seconds before losing on a Jamir McMillan 3 at the buzzer.

“Last time we played them, we lost 48-46 on a buzzer beater, so just coming in here tonight and trying to get our get back, playing with confidence, we got the dub,” said Red Devils senior guard Kaedon Porter, who led Wednesday’s scoring with 18 points.

While Wednesday’s game was just the first in a 10-game conference slate, St. Pauls lost its fifth straight game and fell under .500 for the season.

“I would lie to say I didn’t think we would be better off now than we were when we started, but we’re still trying to find the answers,” St. Pauls coach Corey Thompson said. “And we have the answers, but we’ve got to be able to stick to the game plan, execute. When you miss 17 free throws, when you miss 3-pointers, when you miss layups, when you miss your defensive assignments and everything, got 20 turnovers, that’s a recipe for a loss. That’s kind of been our plague all season.”

Red Springs took an 11-6 lead after the first quarter, hitting three 3-pointers in the first eight minutes including two by Darren Wilkins, who scored the team’s first eight points. St. Pauls was held without a field goal for the last 6:01 of the period.

“I haven’t been really performing like I feel like I should, but I feel like I had a better performance,” Wilkins said. “All around, rebounding, playing hard, the energy before the game, it was just a full turnaround for our team. … It felt good. They found me, I hit some shots, went on a little run, had a lot of momentum for our team and it ended up helping us a lot.”

“When Darren got hot early, they couldn’t solely focus on (Porter) because (Wilkins) started hitting some shots, so they had to give him some type of respect,” Patterson said. “As long as our guys step up and play their game and knock down open shots, we can keep it an even playing field where they’ve got to play honest with everybody.”

St. Pauls closed to within a 14-11 deficit after a traditional 3-point play by Jamarcus Smith at the 6:04 mark of the second quarter; Red Springs outscored the Bulldogs 12-5 over the balance of the half to extend its lead to 26-16 at the break. Red Springs hit one field goal over the final 7:18 of the half, but the Red Devils were 11-for-14 at the free-throw line in the quarter including an 8-for-10 clip from Kaedon Porter.

“That’s kind of been our thing the whole season, we’ve been starting off slow,” Corey Thompson said. “We’re still trying to figure out, offensive-wise. Teams do a good job as far as taking some stuff away, but the guys have got to be able to make plays for us.”

After four free throws and a Chris Bryant hook shot with 4:23 left in the third, St. Pauls cut the Red Devils’ lead to 28-22. But a 7-0 spurt by the Red Devils, led by five points from Porter, regained the momentum and gave Red Springs its largest lead to that point at 35-22 with 2:53 to go in the period. Red Springs held a 36-26 lead at the end of the third.

“Just staying poised (was key to maintaining the lead),” Porter said. “Coach told us to stay poised, and we went out there and had everything under control and we came out with the win.”

Red Springs stretched its lead to 43-31 with 5:40 to go after two Justice McMillan baskets. St. Pauls got back within nine points twice, but couldn’t sustain a run to get any closer. From a 47-38 score inside the final two minutes, the Red Devils scored the last seven points of the game to put it away.

“We couldn’t put together a consistent run,” Corey Thompson said. “We’d stop them, and then we’d score, and then we’d stop them but we wouldn’t score for three or four more possessions. So not having a consecutive offensive run, and consecutive stops.”

Behind Porter, Makhi Arthur scored 11 points and Wilkins finished with nine for Red Springs. Tim Hammonds and Jasiah Williams each added five points.

Jamarcus Smith had six points with eight rebounds for St. Pauls and Jamir McMillan scored six points with two assists. Tyson Thompson scored five points with four rebounds and Jakhi Purcell had five points.

After losing 12 straight games to the Bulldogs from 2019-22, Red Springs has now won four of the last five meetings, dating back to the start of last season.

“It could’ve been five (straight), but feels good for us to be on the other side of a streak, because we had that long streak with Fairmont, and we finally broke it four or five years ago, and then we had that long streak with St. Pauls, so it just feels good to finally be back on the winning side of things,” Patterson said.

Early run sparks Lady Bulldogs rout of Red Springs

The St. Pauls girls basketball team started slow over the first four minutes of Wednesday’s game against Red Springs. But a 19-second stretch was all it took for the Bulldogs to flip the switch and play like their usual, dominant selves.

The Bulldogs built a 14-point lead by the end of the first quarter and cruised to a 59-21 win over the Red Devils in both teams’ Southeastern Athletic Conference opener.

“I challenged Jashontae (Harris); I said ‘we’re going to go how you go,’” St. Pauls coach Jaymar Thompson said. “I slotted her back at point guard for that stretch, and she started orchestrating things pretty good in that stretch, finding the open man.”

Tied 2-2 after four minutes of play, with a St. Pauls (8-3, 1-0 Southeastern) basket by Ava Monroe and a Red Springs (2-11, 0-1 Southeastern) bucket for Monica Washington, St. Pauls scored 10 points in rapid succession. Harris hit a 3-pointer, and after a Red Springs turnover Zalaya Gardner scored for the Bulldogs. Seconds later, after another steal, Zhariana Shipman hit a 3 of her own. Then, after the Bulldogs forced another turnover, Shipman scored again on a layup for a 12-2 lead with 3:29 left in the half.

St. Pauls’ defense keyed the run, scoring so many points so quickly with each of the baskets just a few seconds apart.

“I’m trying to find a team identity. … What I did, I went back to pressing a little bit,” Jaymar Thompson said. “At the beginning I was playing half-court set defense, so I went back to pressing to get the girls back their energy. It kind of worked out for us tonight.”

Red Springs was held without a field goal until the 4:50 mark of the second quarter. St. Pauls built its lead to 18-4 by the end of the first quarter, and extended the advantage to 23-5 before a Nakira Hunt layup ended the Red Springs field goal drought. The Bulldogs led 29-9 at halftime.

St. Pauls held Red Springs without a field goal for nearly the entire third quarter, with the Red Devils finding the net for the first time with 17 seconds remaining in the period. The Bulldogs took a 48-13 lead to the fourth.

Harris led St. Pauls with 16 points, Shipman scored 14 points with five rebounds and four steals and Gardner had six points with five rebounds. Freshman Ava Monroe scored 12 points with six rebounds and five steals, furthering her place as a key up-and-coming piece for the Bulldogs.

“I’m trying to challenge (Monroe) and not put too much pressure on her, because she’s a freshman,” Jaymar Thompson said. “She works hard for me. She doesn’t mind playing defense, and those are real players that have that kind of talent that just scrap up and play defense.”

Monica Washington scored 10 points to lead the Red Devils and Nakira Hunt added six.

St. Pauls won its 15th straight game in the head-to-head series. Red Springs lost its fifth straight game overall.

St. Pauls plays Friday at Fairmont; Red Springs will play at Clinton.