The Shepherd Pirates had already won two in a row (a stretch where they outscored their opponents by an average of 5 points), and they went ahead and made it three on Friday. They put the hurt on Coldspring-Oakhurst with a sharp 67-43 win. The match was pretty much decided by the half, when the score had already reached 39-18.
Shepherd's win was a true team effort, with many players turning in solid performances. Perhaps the best among them was Payton Burton, who scored 20 points along with six rebounds and four steals. Burton has been hot recently, having posted three or more steals the last three times he's played. The team also got some help courtesy of Brayden White, who dropped a double-double on 17 points and 11 rebounds.
Shepherd is on a roll lately: they've won 12 of their last 14 matches, which provided a nice bump to their 20-13 record this season. As for Coldspring-Oakhurst, their loss dropped their record down to 25-8.
Shepherd will head out on the road to square off against Trinity at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday. Shepherd is facing Trinity at the right time seeing as Trinity is stuck on a five-game losing streak. As for Coldspring-Oakhurst, they will look to defend their home court on Tuesday against Onalaska at 6:30 p.m. Onalaska has been getting the ball to fall more lately as they've increased their point totals each of their last three games.
