Something had to give in the Southeast Kansas League boys game Friday night between visiting Parsons and home Pittsburg.

The Purple Dragons were winless during their first eight home games and had recorded their first seven wins on the road or playing neutral-site games.

The Vikings lost their first eight SEK League games and logged their only wins against Baxter Springs 51-49 and Humboldt 73-60.

The Dragons fell behind early but rallied back for a halftime lead and lead after three quarters on the way to a 59-52 home victory over Parsons.

“No, Coach (Anthony) Houk does a great job,” Pittsburg boys coach Jesse Moss said during his postgame broadcast interview. “Parsons is definitely not the same team when we played them a couple weeks ago, so a ton of credit to them and they shot the crap out of it, I’m excited to see what they shot from 3, but I’m assuming it was a pretty high percentage. We didn’t do enough to bother them; we didn’t fly around in the first half, so we went to trapping ball screens just to get some type of energy and deflections. It worked at times and then we forgot to fly around and gave them open 3s.”

Jamarcus Davis scored a game-high 26 points for the Dragons; his free throw late in the first half gave the Dragons a 23-22 halftime lead. Davis scored 12 points in the third quarter and paced the Dragons to a 42-37 lead after three quarters. Fittingly enough, Davis closed out the scoring with two free throws.

“He’s an absolute stud,” Moss said. “I’m so fortunate to coach him, let alone get to coach him for another year as well. You’ve got to remember the kid’s only a junior … but I want to give some love real quick to Wyatt Thomas. Played his heart out. I told our coaches on the bench, ‘Wyatt Thomas is going to start for the rest of the season.’ Truly, we’re begging guys to have some fight and make games ugly. It’s going to have to be our recipe for success against teams that are better than us and Wyatt embodies that. So, he was fantastic tonight.”

The Dragons improved to 8-11 on the season and 5-4 SEK with back-to-back nailbiting victories against Independence and Parsons.

Pittsburg returns home Tuesday night against Chanute (11-7, 5-3 SEK); Pittsburg defeated Chanute 52-50 in overtime back on Jan. 9.

PARSONS (52) — Andrew Houk 9, Deshawn Pleasant 3, Aundre Ford 7, Connor Largent 7, Maurian Morton 5, Jason Shaw 17, Kai Gregory 4.

PITTSBURG (59) — Danny Durden 7, Kadin Navaratnam 6, Wyatt Thomas 5, Jamarcus Davis 26, Zayne Miller 2, Landyn Jessee 7, Malakai Meadows 4, Halen Moss 2.

Parsons 14 8 15 15 — 52

Pittsburg 9 14 19 17 — 59

3-point goals: Ford, Shaw 3, Houk 2, Pleasant, Morton, Davis 2, Navaratnam, Jessee.

This sports reporting is made possible, in part, by the Support Local Journalism Project Fund. Learn more at: southeastkansas.org/fund/support-local-journalism-project-fund/