PROCTORVILLE - The Rock Hill Redmen are in the right place at the right time right now.

With tournament play close at hand, the young Redmen are beginning to gell as evident of their 60-49 win over the Fairland Dragons Friday in an Ohio Valley Conference game.

“Our defensive side was where it needs to be right now,” Redmen coach Marty Mills said. “Nathan Davenport is starting do a lot of good things and we’re beginning to understand what we need to do.”

What the Redmen did was rebounds, dominating the boards 37 to 22. Davenport had 17 rebounds to go with 25 points and Andrew Stumbo pulled down nine rebounds.

“We beat their pressure and scored off that. Late in the game we didn’t do as well. All in all, we did a good job on the boards and forced them to take some shots they probably didn’t want to take,” Mills said.

Fairland coach Chad Belville said his team had four goals entering the game and failed to execute its game plan.

“The four things we talked about in practice we let happen,” Belville said.

“We always start slow, so we stressed in practice to execute arly. We had to win the battle of the boards in the first half and they get four offensive rebounds in their first two possessions.”

Rock Hill took an 11-2 lead to start the game when Mike Ison hit one of his three 3-points. The lead was 20-6 at the end of the first quarter.

Davenport scored nine points in the quarter.

Chris Barnett hit a pair of 3-pointers in the second quarter for Fairland, but K.C. Christian matched that for the Redmen and Davenport scored six more points to give Rock Hill a 38-23 halftime lead.

Rock Hill was 16 of 28 from the field in the first half but only 7 of 21 in the second half.

Josh Johnson had all 12 of Fairland’s points in the third quarter as the Rock Hill lead dropped to 48-35.

Rock Hill had nine turnovers in fourth quarter including six straight that helped Fairland score eight unanswered points and cut the Redmen lead to 53-47 with 2:06 to play.

But Rock Hill scored five in a row to lead 57-47 and virtually put the game out of reach.

“They’re kids showed a lot heart they way they came back, but we were able to pull it together and keep our poise,” Mills said.

“Give Rock Hill credit. They hustled and beat us to every loose ball,” Belville said.

Christian finished with 12 points and three assists.

Johnson led Fairland with 24 points, 18 in the second half.

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Fairland6171214=49

ROCK HILL (9-8, 4-4): K.C. Christian 2-6 2-3 2-2 12, Wes Pierson 0-1 0-1 2-2 2, Nathan Davenport 10-17 0-0 5-9 25, Matt Matney 0-2 0-0 0-0 0, Mark DePriest 2-6 0-1 0-0 4, Andrew Stumbo 4-8 0-0 1-2 9, Mike Ison 1-1 2-3 0-0 9. Totals:

19-41 (4-18) 10-15. Fouls: 11. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 37 (Davenport 17, Stumbo 9). Assists: 8 (Christian 3). Turnovers: 18.

FAIRLAND (10-6, 5-2): Kyle Wise 2-3 0-1 0-0 4, Zach Jordan 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Josh Johnson 11-17 0-2 2-2 24, Adam Fuller 2-5 1-2 0-0 7, Rich Staggs 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Ethan Long 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Cole Hatfield 0-3 1-8 0-0 3, J.B. Smith 0-1 0-0 0-0 0, Chris Barnett 1-2 2-3 0-0 8, Zach Pemberton 0-0 0-0 0-0 0, Michael Lamb 1-3 0-2 1-2 3, Dustin Bumgardner 0-2 0-0 -0 0. Totals: 21-54

(4-18)

3-4

49. Fouls: 12. Fouled out: None. Rebounds: 22 (Lamb 5). Assists: 11 (Barnett 2, Johnson 2). Turnovers: 11.