In the earlier meeting at Brunswick, South rallied in the fourth quarter and won the turnover battle. Not so Friday, as the Rebels committed 20 turnovers to the Railroaders' 11. South played evenly with Brunswick after those dreadful opening minutes, but the damage had been done.
"We're a two-half team. Either we play real well in the first half and burn off all our energy, or we start too patient and are not aggressive enough," Rebels coach Dennis Seman said. "Chalk another one up to experience."
Joel Hafner had the hot hand early, scoring eight of his 15 points in the first quarter and six in the opening run for Brunswick (7-4, 8-10).
"He's our best perimeter shooter, and we expect him to make some shots for us," McLane said.
Eric Zwilsky added five points in the opening run for the Railroaders. Aaron Main made two baskets to start the second quarter to give Brunswick a 21-6 lead, and Donald Randolph came off the bench and scored nine of his 11 points in the second quarter as the Railroaders went into halftime up, 35-20.
"Donald's a role player for us, and he came in tonight and gave us a real spark in the second quarter," McLane said.
Front-line players Chris Papanicolas and Kennard Hueston picked their games up in the second half. Papanicolas had 11 of his 13 points in the half and Hueston had nine of his 11.
Daviel Richardson kept the Rebels competitive, scoring 20 points in all different ways - drives to the basket, mid-range jumpers and 3-point bombs.
