AHOSKIE – The Hertford County boy’s basketball team entered this week’s tournament with a perfect 9-0 record.

Monday night they demolished Gates County 89-51 at home to remain undefeated after 10 games and advanced to the News-Herald Holiday Classic finals.

Hertford Coach Charles Simmons said, &uot;We’ve been focusing on using our defense to create transition scoring. Tonight is indicative of how our game plan has been all season, we played great half-court defense and got many looks in the open court.&uot;

For those in attendance Monday night, it was evident that the Bears are getting stronger as the season goes on. Neither team could make a shot early on, and midway through the first quarter, Hertford County held a 4-0 lead on baskets by Tydreke Powell and LaMarcus Bond.

Eventually the Bears found their stroke and forward Antonio Branch helped spark a run that saw the Bears’ lead climb to 22-9 after one period.

Raphael Eason, who led Gates County with 17 points and teammate Graylen Boone, found that scoring inside against the much bigger Bears squad was as difficult a task as keeping the high flying Marcel Henneghan and Mychael Moore off the glass.

It was an acrobatic dunk by Henneghan that put Hertford County ahead 26-12 midway through the second quarter, and set the tone for the remainder of the game.

Lamarcus Jenkins finished with 11 points to go along with his game high 14 rebounds, as he and Powell owned the glass on both ends of the floor.

It was Branch who changed the tempo of the game, as Patrick Downing, who led the Bears with six assists continued to find Brach for lay-ups.

At halftime Hertford County was up by a score of 45 – 18 and it got worse for the Red Barons after the break.

With many reserves getting extensive playing time in the second half, Hertford County saw its lead swell to over 30 points and the Red Barons never got much closer than the 38-point deficit that ended being the final score.

Moore got a dunk with about 30 second remaining in the game that made the score 89-51, and that ended up being the closing statement on the lopsided victory.

Undefeated and with two conference wins under his belt as well Simmons was pleased with his team’s performance.

&uot;We are a quick team, I think that showed tonight,&uot; Simmons said. &uot;We have to continue to use our speed to make us a quality transition team that presses in both the full court and half court sets.&uot;

Hertford County (89): Antonio Branch – 15, LaMarcus Jenkins – 11, A. Lyles – 9,

D. Pillman – 9, L. Monger – 8, M. Moore – 6, L. Bond – 4, T. Powell – 4,

M. Burnell – 4, C. Mizelle – 3, W. Pryor – 2, M. Henneghan – 2

Gates County (51): Raphael Eason – 17, Danny Hobbs -13, Graylen Boone – 10,

J. Rodil – 5, D. Briggs – 4, S. Blowe – 1, R. Harrison – 1