By BAKER ELLIS / Sports Editor

VINCENT – EJ Datcher slammed home a thunderous alley-oop courtesy of Wesley King with just over four minutes left in the first quarter to put Vincent up 11-0 over the visiting Fayetteville Wolves, and the game could have ended right there, as the host Yellow Jackets boat raced the Wolves to the tune of a 59-24 win that was never in any sort of doubt.

Vincent (8-2), which has not been much of a pressing team this season, worked on its 2-2-1 full court press defense for the majority of the first half, as Yellow Jacket head coach John Hadder wanted to try and work out some of the early season kinks to his press.

“Really we just wanted to try and do the basic things that we do and do them better,” Hadder said after the game. “We’ve got a lot to work on. We’ve improved, but we’ve still got a long way to go. We haven’t been real good in the press. We wanted to do it early tonight honestly just to get a look at it on film tomorrow.”

After building an early 16-0 run, Vincent was in cruise control the rest of the evening. Fayetteville had no one who could match up with essentially anyone on Vincent’s roster. Datcher and King had their way inside while Terrell Calhoun, Zavien Kelley and Stephen Campbell repeatedly got to the rack for easy buckets as Vincent built an insurmountable 33-9 halftime lead.

After the third quarter the score was 54-14, and the final was 59-24 as Vincent advanced to 8-2 on the year and Fayetteville fell to 1-5.

Datcher led the Yellow Jackets with 17 points and eight rebounds while Kelley and Calhoun both finished with 10. Brian Osbourne had 16 of Fayetteville’s 24 points.

The Yellow Jackets will now turn their attention to the Shelby County Tournament, where they will play Helena in the second round on Thursday at 5 p.m. at Oak Mountain High School.