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Ferriday High School’s Montriuze Sandage, runs the ball down the court during the boys basketball game against Mangham Friday in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

Ferriday High School’s Dee Johnson, jumps up to shoot the ball Friday during the game against Mangham in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

Ferriday High School’s Micheal Tennessee looks to pass the ball Friday during the game against Mangham in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

Ferriday High School’s Basketball Coach, George Barnes, directs his team from the sidelines Friday during the game against Mangham in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

Ferriday High School’s Micheal Tennessee shoots the ball Friday during the game against Mangham in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

Ferriday High School’s Derrick Johnson, runs the ball down the court Friday during the game against Mangham in Ferriday. (Nicole Hester, The Natchez Democrat)

By GREG MOORE

The Natchez Democrat

FERRIDAY — Ferriday High School Trojans showed rallied to defeat Mangham Hight School 63-52 Friday Night.

Montrieze Sandage led the Trojans with 17 points and Jamie Green contributed 10 points to help their team defeat Mangham High School 63-52 Friday Night.

This is the second time the two teams have faced each other this year, with Mangham coming back from behind and winning by 2 points 58-56 in the first matchup on Dec. 18.

Friday night’s game was different for Ferriday because the team’s former head coach K.G. Watkins resigned and assistant George Barnes assumed the interim head coach role.

Barnes said his focus going into the game was to limit scoring from Mangham’s best scorers.

“We’ve looked at some film, and we knew they had a shooter,” Barnes said referring to Mangham’s Kaleb Pleasant.

“We wanted to keep and eye on him and just try to put a lot of pressure on him,” Barnes said.

The strategy worked, the Trojans held Pleasant to just 5 points in the game.

The first quarter did not produce much success offensively for both teams.

Ferriday and Mangham drove the ball down the court but often failed to convert their shots.

“That’s been our Achilles heel all year, not being able to make shots when we needed to,’’ said Eddie Dunn, Mangham’s head coach.

Mangham finished the first quarter up 4 points with a score of 11-7.

In the second quarter, Ferriday traded scores with Mangham throughout most of the quarter and began to get more stops defensively but it wasn’t enough to erase the deficit.

Ferriday brought Mangham’s lead to 3 points about halfway through the second quarter but Mangham got easier scores off of their possessions toward the end of the quarter.

Mangham extended their lead to 7 points, going into half time with a score of 26-19 going into halftime.

The second half was the opposite story for Ferriday.

The Trojans continued working to make Pleasant uncomfortable.

“In the second half the pressure started paying off, he got tired and kind threw the ball around. It helped us out some,” Barnes said.

In the third quarter Ferriday was able to get lots of points from Mangham turning the ball over.

Dunn said his team had to limit turnovers among other things to win the game.

“That was one of the things we did tonight, we turned the ball over too much” Dunn said.

Ferriday also was able to get Mangham into foul trouble, making it to the free throw line six times and making eight free throws out of 11.

Sandage had 9 points in third quarter, which helped his team his take a 4-point lead and end the quarter with a score of 41-37. Ferriday continued their performance in the fourth quarter

The Trojans had six different players contribute points, most of the scores were layups because of good passing and transition play.

On the defensive side, the Trojans got rebounds when they needed them to secure the 63-52 win.

Barnes said the game meant a lot to his team because it is the beginning of the second half of their district schedule.

“We really needed it to build confidence and momentum,” Barnes said.

JT Smith had 20 points for Mangham and Kevin Harrison contributed 8 points.

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