CHOCOWINITY — The Southside girls basketball team opened up the Four Rivers Conference tournament in impressive fashion as it cruised past Camden 63-42 on Tuesday.
The No. 2 Seahawks (23-2), who clinched a share of the Four Rivers Conference with Riverside but lost out on earning the No. 1 seed after a coin flip, will advance to the second round of the tournament where it will face the winner of the No. 3 Plymouth-No. 6 Northside game at host site South Creek on Thursday.
Camden (4-20), the No. 7 seed, put up a fight early against Southside as McKenzie Moore erupted to score 10 of her team’s first 11 points.
A Moore free throw cut Southside’s lead to 9-8 midway through the first but the Seahawks closed out the quarter on fire as they ripped off 16-2 run to take a 25-10 lead into the second.
“We really wanted to come out and make a statement early in the game so we came out and applied pressure,” Southside coach Bill Lake said. “We didn’t get a lot of steals but we forced a lot of turnovers.”
With the defense clamping down the Seahawks put points on the board behind a 24-point effort by point guard Katisha Hyman. Southside also got a strong game from guard/forward Chante Painter who tallied 13 points and forward Deandrea Purdue who tallied 11 points and was a strong presence on the glass.
Camden tweaked their zone defense in the second quarter where it was only outscored 14-10 but the Bruins just could not match the balanced attack of the Seahawks and went into halftime trailing 39-20.
McKenzie would go on to finish the contest leading all scorers with 27 points but the team’s next highest scorer was Erica Banos with six.
McKenzie’s play down low led to the Seahawks getting into some early foul trouble but Southside was able to escape with minimal damage.
“We ended up in foul trouble down low for the whole game and it got to a point where our big men just let her go and hope that she missed,” Lake said. “She didn’t’ miss very many.”
Purdue led Southside in the third quarter where she scored nine points to extend the lead to 54-31 heading into the final eight minutes of the game.
In the fourth quarter Lake was able to get deeper into his bench and let the starters get a little bit of rest before their tourney action resumes on Thursday.
Overall, it was a good night for Lake and the Seahawks but the coach said he wants to see more intensity from his club.
“I’m happy with the way we played,” Lake said. “We’re just going to have to be a little more into it on Thursday. It will be a much tougher round for us.
“We have a day to get ready. We’re not ready yet but we will be ready Thursday.”

Camden    10    10    11    11         42
Southside     25    14    15    9    –    63
Bruins (42)
McKenzee Moore 27, Lewis 2, Grasors 2, Banos 6, Pipken 5, Watts 1, Anderson 2.
Seahawks (63)
Katisha Hyman 24, Mourning 4, Chante Painter 13, Deandrea Purdue 11, Clark 7, Ruffin 2, Biango 2.