TEXARKANA, Ark. - The cross-town rivalry game between Pleasant Grove and Arkansas High started off close before the Hogs went on their run.
The Razorbacks (1-2) defeated the Hawks (0-3) at Razorback Gym on Tuesday night, 81-65.
"Well, we did alright tonight," Arkansas High head coach Sam Weaver said. "We made some mistakes tonight. We're still a young team. We have to continue to work to try to get a little bit better."
Arkansas High continued the full-court press, which wore down Pleasant Grove, who was playing with a depleted roster.
The Hogs held their largest lead of the night in the fourth quarter with 1:47 left, 81-63.
"Our guys played with a lot of heart tonight, but we just ran out of gas at the end," Pleasant Grove head coach Dwight McCowan said. "I told our guys after the game that we got every shot that we wanted. That's what good teams do. We got everything we wanted; they just all didn't fall for us."
Both teams came out of the locker rooms swapping baskets.
The Razorbacks were unable to pull away due to turnovers and the Hawks were able to convert the blunders into points.
The Hogs held a slight edge over the Hawks, 54-50, with 4:07 left in the third quarter.
The Razorbacks went on a 14-0 run behind the shooting of Randle and Jordan Jones.
Arkansas High eventually ballooned its lead to double-digits, 64-53, at the 2:00 mark.
"Our discipline faded a little bit there towards the end," Weaver said. "We tried to jack up three's because our guys got caught up in the excitement of the game instead of staying focused on our gameplan. We'll get better, we just have to keep working at it."
Jaylon Randle added 18 points for Arkansas High and teammate Kentrell Wilson finished the night with 19 points.
AHS snatched the lead at the beginning of the quarter behind the shooting of Nick Watson.
Watson scored 14 points in the quarter and finished with a game-high 21 points.
The Razorbacks held a five point lead with 39 seconds left before halftime, when T'vondrick Henry threw a behind the back pass to Layton Jackson for a PG slam, cutting the AHS advantage to three, 45-42.
Henry poured in 16 points for Pleasant Grove.
Mason Cornelius added 10 points for the Hogs.
Brett Carmony started off hot for the Hawks in the opening period. Carmony drained three consecutive treys to give PG the early advantage, 13-4.
Carmony finished with 18 points on six three-pointers for the Hawks and teammate Jackson ended the night with 16 points.
"Carmony shot the ball well for us," McCowan said. "We gave him the green light and we want him to shoot the ball every time it touches his hands. T'vondrick did great for us and we have Jackson controlling the paint for us.
"Our strategy in the second half was to put Layton on the block and have T'vondrick stretch the defense on the other side. We executed our plan for the most part, we just got a little tired down the stretch.
The Hogs went to their full-court press, which helped them cut into the Hawks lead, 15-10, with 2:40 left in the first.
Henry slammed two consecutive dunks that sparked the Pleasant Grove offense.
Both teams swapped leads, before eventually settling at a tie to end the first quarter, 21-21.
"All of the guys did a good job shooting for us tonight," Weaver said. "Points are not indicative always of a team win. We got Randle out early, he just wasn't into the game. He came back out in the second half and did a much better job for us."