LASKER – Northeast Academy continues to enjoy their first year inside the Tarheel Independent Conference.

The Eagles knocked off former Carolina Academies Conference rival Hobgood Academy 38-31 here Tuesday night to run their TIC record to 5-1 as they improved to 11-2 overall.

&uot;We hung in there tonight,&uot; NEA skipper John Brown said. &uot;We didn’t shoot well and had to work to get good shots.

&uot;Hobgood did a good job stopping what we wanted to do,&uot; he added.

The Raiders held close through the first quarter, but Northeast rolled off 11 unanswered to open the second quarter as they began to pull away.

Brian McLean started the spurt with a hoop to open the quarter as five different Eagles scored during the spurt. Lance Jenkins, Rich Edwards and Buddy Duke each added hoops for NEA while Barry Barrett buried a trey.

Matthew Hux answered with back-to-back buckets in the last 1:40 of the quarter, but NEA grabbed a 21-13 halftime lead.

After an Edwards bucket pushed the lead to 10 (23-13), Hobgood rolled off seven straight to cut the lead to 23-20 with 3:36 to play in the quarter. Hux had four of those points for the Raiders while Travis Grimes had the other three.

NEA opened the fourth with a pair of free throws from McLean and a trey from Duke to push the lead back to 10.

After Hobgood trimmed the advantage back to seven, it was five points from Jenkins that all but sealed the win for the Eagles, pushing their lead to 35-23 with three minutes to play in the contest.

Northeast (38): Buddy Duke – 13, L. Jenkins – 9, B. McLean – 9, R. Edwards – 4, B. Barrett – 3

Hobgood (31): Matthew Hux – 17, D. Josey – 5, D. Vanderford – 5, T. Grimes – 4