The Buford boys picked the right night to come up with their best offensive performance of the season.
The No. 1-ranked Wolves raced to a 56-23 halftime lead and survived a second-half push to defeat No. 4 Warner Robins 94-72 on Wednesday at the Buford Civic Center.
Buford closed the first quarter with a 16-4 run to take a 21-9 lead, then used a 16-0 stretch in the second quarter to take a commanding lead. The Wolves led 56-23 at the half.
“Probably as good a first half as we’ve played all year long,” Buford coach Eddie Martin said. “It all started on the defensive end. We did some things that frustrated them and they settled for some jump shots early and we were able to rebound and get out in transition and get some easy buckets out of it.”
Warner Robins gamely tried to make a game of it. The Demons were within minutes of having the 30-point mercy rule invoked, but cut Buford’s margin to 69-46 at the end of three. Warner Robins whittled the lead to 17 points with four minutes left before the Wolves were able to regain their footing and put the game away.
“Against a good team you know they’re going to make runs at you,” Martin said. “It felt a lot closer than it did. We settled back down. It was a marathon.”
Buford (27-2) was led by Marcus Watson with 24 points and Tobi Obasanya scored 23. David Viti added 18 and Donell Nixon scored 16.
Warner Robins (26-4) got 19 from Nelson Phillips, 14 from Jaydon Norman and 10 from Jaron Zanders.
It was a nice change of pace for Buford, which got off to a sluggish start in its first two tournament wins against Lithia Springs and New Hampstead.
“We have talked several times about we’ve got to get out of the blocks and quit putting ourselves behind the eight ball,” Martin said. “The kids did a great job listening to the scouting reports. The first half was probably as close to perfection as far as doing the things we asked them to do on the scouting report.”
