RAMSEUR The Eastern Randolph and Asheboro High School varsity boys basketball teams met for the third time this season Friday night having split the first two games.

The Wildcats won the rubber match convincingly, 54-37 at ERHS, while the Blue Comets girls team won the opener 67-45.

We played 32 minutes a smart 32 minutes, Eastern Randolph boys coach Seth Baxter said. Corey Newby was outstanding and having our big daddy (Corey Yahn) back inside is huge. Myquail Watts did a great job getting his hands on some loose balls. This was one of our better games. Im really, really proud of our effort.

The teams started the game trading leads with the Wildcats heading into the second quarter up 17-14. After the squads traded leads again, Eastern Randolph broke loose with a 10-1 run that put the team up 27-19 with just under 1 1/2 minutes to play in the first half.

Down by six at the half, Asheboro went on an early 5-0 run to cut the Wildcats lead to three, but Eastern Randolph responded with 11 straight points and never looked back.

We started feeling sorry for ourselves because we couldnt connect from the free-throw line, said Blue Comets coach Brian Nance, whose team shot 25 percent (5 of 20) from the stripe. That carried over into everything else. Its not like weve become a bad basketball team overnight. Were just in a funk. We need to get back to playing more efficiently.

Newby paced the Wildcats (8-3) with 17 points, while Yahn added 12 and Watts chipped in 12.

For Asheboro (8-5), Emmanuel Jones had 12 points with Robert Bittle scoring nine.

In the girls game, Asheboro started with a 6-0 run, but Eastern Randolph battled back to tie it twice. Another six straight put the Blue Comets up by six and Asheboro headed into the second quarter up 20-14.

The teams traded buckets for the first 3 1/2 minutes of the quarter until a Laycee Baughman 3-pointer sparked a 12-0 run for Asheboro that put the Blue Comets up 40-22. After that, the Wildcats couldnt catch up as Asheboros lead grew to as many as 27 in the second half.

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Blue Comets, Wildcats split