CHOCOWINITY — It was night and day for Southside on Thursday. The Lady Seahawks, looking for their first 1-A Coastal Plains Conference win, trailed visiting Jones Senior by 13 at halftime. They struggled with ball security and missed the crispness in their ball movement that made them look so good over the Christmas break.

The latter 16 minutes were a different story. Southside drew three fouls in the first 1:10 of the third quarter. The ball movement improved, and shooters like Jada Jones, Precious Gaynor and Symone Ruffin were able to knock down shots.

“I told them they came out flat because they weren’t focused,” Southside coach Milton Ruffin said of the first half. “When you come out here and play the game of basketball, you’ve got to be ready. When you hit the floor, you’ve got to be ready to play.

“If you want to be a winner, you’ve got to play through it. It’s what builds character. It’s all about what’s in your heart.”

Jones hit a 3-pointer coming out of the intermission to trim the Lady Seahawks’ deficit to 10. They took off on a 16-1 run shortly thereafter. Gaynor and Ruffin both got baskets from long range, the second of which gave Southside its first lead of the game — 35-32 with 2:05 left in the third.

The Lady Trojans got four quick points at the end of the period to take a 36-35 lead into the fourth. The game was tied twice in the fourth before another triple by Jones put Southside ahead, 43-42. Ruffin drove the lane and put up a floater to extend her team’s lead to 47-42, which was its largest of the evening.

“I told them to go ahead and calm down. This is what it’s all about,” Ruffin said of conversations at timeouts after Southside took a lead. “This is the position you want to be in. Go out there and play the game you’ve been playing.”

It was enough to hang onto, though. The Lady Trojans pulled within one, but Ruffin found Judashia Golson wide open for a layup with 30 ticks left. Ruffin then stole Jones Senior’s inbound to run out the final 11 seconds.

“I challenged Judashia to go up there and get those rebounds,” Ruffin said. “I told her it was going to be tough to get the rebounds over them. I think she did a good job for us tonight. … She’s been working hard and deserved (to start the game). I liked the way she played (Wednesday), and I rewarded her for it.”

Tanayja Green scored the visitors’ first eight points to give them an early 8-2 edge over Southside. They kept rolling through the first as Green’s 3 put the exclamation point on a 21-point first quarter.

Already leading 21-8 after one, the Lady Trojans got baskets from Green and Shaelah King to fuel a 6-0 spurt to push their lead to 27-8 early in the second.