AHOSKIE – This time it was a battle.

A week ago Hertford County ran away with an easy win over Northampton-East in the first round of the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald Holiday Classic.

Saturday afternoon, the Bears had to come from behind to grab a 62-52 win over the Rams.

&uot;In the last three minutes of the game, we did a good job on defense by making them move the ball and run down the clock,&uot; veteran HCHS skipper Charles Simmons said. &uot;We also did a good job defending the three-point shots.&uot;

Thanks to an Adrian Sawyer bucket midway through the fourth quarter, East claimed a 52-50 advantage.

The Bears, however, controlled the rest of the game, scoring 12 unanswered points to claim the win.

LaMarcus Jenkins deadlocked the game with his tenth point of the game before LaMarcus Bond had eight straight points to grab the win.

Tydreke Powell sealed the win with a hoop in the final seconds of the game.

In the early going, Northampton-East ran out to a 10-point advantage.

With the Bears leading 4-2, the Rams went on a 10-point run.

Javon Jordan started the spurt with back-to-back hoops that gave East the 6-2 lead. Consecutive Travis Mason buckets that pushed the East lead to 12-4 followed a bucket by Keon Shoulars.

Sawyer pushed the Rams’ lead to 18-8 with his bucket in the final minute of the quarter.

Hertford County rallied to grab the lead when they rolled off the first 12 points of the second quarter.

Marcus Burnell and Jenkins had four points each during the stretch that gave Hertford County a 20-18 lead.

The Rams cut the advantage to one (24-23), but HCHS scored the final seven points of the half to lead 31-23 at the intermission.

Hertford County’s advantage went to eight (38-30) midway through the third quarter, but East rolled off eight unanswered to deadlock the score.

Jordan, Jeremy Taylor and Shoulars had hoops during that stretch.

The score remained tied through the third period and into the fourth when the Rams took their short-lived advantage.

The Bears had a solid weekend as they knocked off league foe Manteo 66-55 Friday evening. Northampton-East suffered their first Tar-Roanoke Conference loss Friday night when they fell 44-38 to North Edgecombe.

Hertford County (62): LaMarcus Bond – 17, Tydreke Powell – 12, LaMarcus Jenkins – 10, M. Burnell – 9, K. Lee – 6, J. Futrell – 4, W. Pryor – 3, F. Gatling – 1

Northampton-East (52): Javon Jordan – 12, Jeremy Taylor – 12, T. Mason – 9, A. Sawyer – 8, K. Shoulars – 7, T. Pierce – 2, M. Corbin – 2