Scales scores 24 as D'Iberville holds off Pass Christian, 54-50

D'Iberville - Pass Christian entered the gym at D'Iberville High School in search of coach Buddy Kennedy's 500th career win.

Win No. 500 will have to wait for another day.

D'Iberville clipped Pass Christian, 54-50, Friday night to improve to 7-2.

"We came in with a chip on our shoulder," D'Iberville senior Evan Howard said. "We weren't going to let it happen in our house."

The 6-foot-8 Howard hit a jumper with 6 seconds left to give the Warriors a 52-50 lead and Zach Scales stole the inbound pass for another basket with three seconds remaining to close out the contest.

Howard showed nice touch on his jumper near the base line late to regain the lead for D'Iberville.

"We practiced for an hour and a half this morning in practice so it was basically second nature once we got in the game," said Howard, who had nine points. "Coach (Lorenzo Wright) did a good job of preparing us.

"It was three-man, two ball. It's a shooting drill. My shot was nice today I guess."

Scales, a senior point guard, was the most productive player on the court for the Warriors Friday night.

Scales scored 10 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter to hold off the Pass Christian rally.

"He's the man that runs the show," Wright said. "He's probably the best kept secret on the Coast. Nobody really talks about him a whole lot, but he's a small bit of dynamite. He lights it up and plays hard all game long."

Junior guard Kyle Winters was also a key contributor in the backcourt for D'Iberville. He was D'Iberville's second-leading scorer with 14 points, including two of his team's three 3-pointers.

Jaylen Peters led Pass Christian with 13 points and Aaron Whavers scored nine of his 11 points in the fourth quarter as Pass Christian worked to get back in the game.

The Pirates jumped out to a 13-8 lead midway through the first quarter, but that's when D'Iberville found its spark.

The Warriors rolled off an 11-0 run to hold a 19-13 lead at the 4:46 mark of the second quarter following a basket by Howard.

"I think it was our defense," Scales said of the reason of the Warriors' big run. "We crashed the boards and got the ball out to our guards and pushed the tempo."

At the half, D'Iberville led 25-19.

"In all three losses this year, we've had kind of everything go our way and then we fall in love with the 3-pointer," Kennedy said. "We were up 13-8 and we came down and jacked up shots after the first pass six or seven times in a row. That helped them on their 11-0 run. Until we learn to quit doing that, we're going to come up short in these kinds of games."

D'Iberville's lead grew to 34-22 with 5:26 left in the third quarter, but that's when Pass Christian began to gradually chip away.

Pass Christian closed out the third quarter on an 11-2 run capped by a pair of baskets by Peters to make it 36-33 headed into the fourth quarter.

A 3-pointer by Pass Christian's Aydarius Young with 1:35 remaining tied the game at 48-48.

Winters and Peters traded baskets to set up Howard's decisive basket.

"We knew Pass wasn't going to quit," Wright said. "They're always going to fight to the end. Coach Kennedy does a good job so we knew they'd come out ready in the second half."

Pass Christian (6-3) will host Biloxi on Tuesday and D'Iberville will travel to Poplarville the same night.

This story was originally published December 11, 2015 at 11:53 PM with the headline "Scales scores 24 as D'Iberville holds off Pass Christian, 54-50 ."