WILLIAMSTON — Southside’s quest to repeat as Four Rivers Conference champions took a major step forward on Tuesday as the Seahawks fended off a late rally by Riverside to hold on to a 74-67 victory.
Heading into the game the Knights (21-2, 12-1) were the No. 1 ranked 1-A team in the state according to NCPreps.com and sat all alone at first place in the conference standings. However, a hot start by Southside (21-2, 12-1), the third-ranked 1-A team in the state, allowed the Seahawks to hand the Knights their first conference loss to pull the two teams even in the standings with one game left in the regular season.
“It meant the world to us to come in here and beat them on their floor,” said Southside coach Bill Lake whose team won in Williamston for the first in his seven-year tenure with the Seahawks. “(Riverside) is a really good team. The game was fun to watch and both teams battled hard but this win puts us in position to share a title.”
The game might have been a little harder to watch early on for Riverside coach Hughes Barber whose team was down 21-7 at the end of the first quarter and trailed 30-9 at the 4:31 mark in the second quarter after a Katisha Hyman bucket.
Hyman would go on to lead all scorers with 26 points while her teammates Kyajia Mourning erupted for 20 and Chante Painter poured in 17.
Despite trailing by 21 points Barber urged his team to get back into the game. His team responded by clamping down on defense and drilling threes on offense.
“Finally in the middle of the second quarter we picked our intensity up and I think that was the difference,” Barber said. “I told them it wasn’t about Xs and Ox it was about heart.”
Barber, whose team allowed an averaged of 38 points per game heading into Tuesday’s matchup, looked on as his Knights’ press began pestering the Seahawks and helped cut their lead to 34-23 at halftime.
In the third quarter the Knights came out bombing from downtown and got within nine points of Southside after a three-pointer by Queenie Little with 1:48 left in the third.
With shooters spread out all over the court, the Riverside had six different players combine to make a total of 12 threes over the course of the game.
Courtney Wynn made four of those threes to lead Riverside with 14 points while Little added 12 and Jalyn Brown tallied 11.
“They had multiple people shooting threes and we didn’t really have a good answer for that,” Lake said. “We just kept telling our players that if they get close to that line you have to get in their face and challenge that shot.”
Riverside’s rally continued into the fourth quarter where it was able to pull within one of Southside when a Brown 3 made it 59-58 midway through the quarter.
The Knights would get no closer as Southside got back on track in time to close out the game on a 15-9 run and hold on to the victory.
Both teams will close out their regular season on Thursday as Southside will host Northside and Riverside will entertain South Creek.

Southside    21    13    17    23    –    74
Riverside    7    16    20    24    –    67
Seahawks (74)
Katisha Hyman 26, Chante Painter 17, Ruffin 3, Purdue 4, Hardy 2, Clark 2, Kyajia Mourning 20.
Knights (67)
Moore 9, Gaddy 4, Courtney Wynn 14, Jalyn Brown 11, Queenie Little 12, Brown 3, Woolard 3, Armstrong 8.