POPLARVILLE — Pearl River Central’s girls basketball team downed Poplarville 49-28 on Tuesday. PRC improves to 6-2 while Poplarville drops to 0-4.

Claire Lumpkin hit 3 three pointers and totaled 15 points on the night to lead PRC. 

Harlee Davis played a significant amount of time at the point guard position allowing for Lumpkin to play shooting guard and thus freeing her up for more open looks. Davis not only created shots for her teammates but also added 9 points. 

“Harlee Davis, the freshman played pretty much the whole game. It’s nice to get  Claire off the point sometimes to give her some shots. Claire creates a lot, but people need to set her up for shots like she sets them up for shots,” Head Coach Tony LaBella said.

In their first meeting, Poplarville’s Zanaisha Turner had 28 points and Jasmine Merrill had 14 points. On Tuesday, PRC was able to hold Turner to 5 points and Merrill to 11, which was encouraging for LaBella and his team’s defensive effort.

“I thought we played much better defensively against them, we did not play as well offensively, but we were  really upset last time when they had one girl score 28 points and their other  scorer had 14,” LaBella said. “Since that game, we challenged our team to play better defense. They are both really good players, but nobody scores 28 points against us playing man-to-man defense.”

Poplarville goes on the road Friday to play at Hancock and PRC  hosts East Central Friday.