COVINGTON — Franklinton had a solid second and fourth quarter in a 63-48 victory over Hammond High School in the Covington High School Shootout Basketball Tournament on Wednesday.
The game was Franklinton’s season opener.
“We are very inexperienced and we got some experience,” Franklinton coach Brad Oestriecher said. “We’re going to have some mistakes, but we have a lot of talent, we’ve got a lot of ability and it comes out in flashes. We’ve just got to get it to be consistent.”
The Demons outscored Hammond by a combined 45-25 in the second and fourth quarters, winning both 26-10 and 19-15, but Hammond outscored Franklinton by a combined 21-18 in the first and third quarters. Franklinton won the first period, 11-10, but Hammond won the third, 13-7.
Franklinton began taking control of the game about halfway through the second quarter.
Hammond trimmed a 22-14 deficit to 22-16 with a fastbreak layup by Albert Williams, but the Demons answered back quickly when Raisean Hart knocked down one of his four 3-pointers to make it a nine-point game.
Hart’s 3-pointer began a 12-0 run with him scoring the first 10 points of the run and tallied a game-high 28. He hit for two points at the 3:52 mark and then from long range 45 seconds later for a 30-16 lead with 3:05 left.
Hart added two more with a driving layup and the Demons were doubling up Hammond at 32-16. T.Y. Pope made it an 18-point game when he hit a shot and got fouled. A lane violation prevented the free throw and the Demons were up 34-16 with 2:01 left before taking a 37-20 lead to halftime.
The Tornadoes trimmed the lead to 44-33 after three quarters, but the Demons rebuilt their advantage, which was as high as 20 at 63-43 with 1:11 on the clock, before going on to the 63-48 victory.
Pope recorded 19 points and hit a 3-pointer.
Kian Conerly posted seven points while KeAndre Martin had five and Avant Monie and Albert Browhaw added two each. Conerly and Martin hit a 3-pointer each.
Aaron Marshall led Hammond with 13 points, which included three from beyond the arc.
Williams posted nine while Spencer Fland recorded eight, Derrion Wilson had seven, Darryl Hutchinson put up five, Shannon Taylor tallied four and John Francis added two. Wilson and Hutchinson hit a 3-pointer each.
In Thursday’s action, the Demons lost to Covington, 72-55.
Pope led the team with 25 points.
Hart posted 13 points with Conerly putting up nine and Brohow scoring eight.
The Demons committed 28 turnovers.
The Demons cap off play in the tournament with a game Nov. 18 against Ponchatoula at 1:30 p.m.