Two weeks ago, the East Rankin Patriots were unranked in the Class AAA poll while the Huntington Hounds were the No. 1 team in Class A and the favorites to win the Class A State Tournament.

But on Monday night, Huntington redeemed itself after losing to West Memphis Christian in the Class A championship game, the Hounds held on for a 53-50 win over the Patriots in the first round of the MPSA Overall Tournament in a rare win by a Class A team over a Class AAA team.

Huntington (33-4) will take on Leake Academy, the Class AA No. 2 seed, today at 6:45 p.m. in the quarterfinals.

Antonio Jordan led Huntington with 12 points, 11 rebounds and six blocked shots. Trey Corbett and Ricky Dunbar each finished with 11 points.

“He (Jordan) played hard like that every night. Tonight was no different,” Huntington head coach David Boydstun said. “Ricky had a good ball game. He missed some lay-ups that would have put the game away.”

The Hounds led by 10 points on a couple of occasions, only to have the Patriots rally both times. Thankfully for Huntington and its fans watching the game, the second rally fell a bit short.

“They got the ball inside on the post and shot some short jumpers,” Boydstun said. “We had a couple of turnovers and missed a few shots.”

In the third quarter, Huntington’s defense, led by Jordan and Dunbar, played a big part in the Hounds outscoring the Patriots 13-8 in the third quarter for a 42-35 lead.

The Patriots went on a 12-3 run and trailed by just one point with 1:00 remaining, but two free throws by Jordan with 18 seconds left proved to be huge.