George Rogers Clark’s boys basketball team hosted the Powell County Pirates Tuesday night in their first meeting since Valentine’s Day 2006.

Powell County scored the game’s first basket but the Cards would quickly score eight points to take a lead that they’d never look back from.

GRC’s full-court press forced the Pirates to take two timeouts in the first six minutes to avoid turnovers. Even with the possession-saving timeouts, the Pirates weren’t able to string together enough scoring plays early to keep up with the potent Cardinals’ offense, falling behind 24-10 at the end of the first quarter due largely to the six 3-pointers GRC hit in the opening quarter.

The Cardinals continued to pull away in the second quarter, outscoring the Pirates 21-9 to take a 45-19 lead into halftime.

Coming out of the break, GRC’s defense stood as mightily as it had all season, not allowing Powell County to score a point for the first seven minutes of the half. The Pirates finally got on the board with one basket and two free throws in the period, but their four-point quarter put the game out of reach.

“We just always want to be solid. One thing in a game, even if you’re winning big, you want to be solid defensively. We’re not always trying to get out and press. We are a pressing team, but we’ve got to get better in our half-court defense,” GRC head coach Josh Cook said. “That’s something we wanted to see our guys do tonight and they did it.”

With the win all but secured entering the fourth quarter, Cook decided to play his reserves to help develop his bench. There was nearly no drop off between the two units as the bench outscored Powell County 15-6 in the game’s final period.

The starters jumped for joy while on the bench, watching their teammates find success on the court.

“That means everything,” Cook said. “They’re kids and at the end of the day, I want people to understand that. Everybody has a role. Everybody is not going to be a superstar but each role is just as important. That’s always been my philosophy. That’s my key, to get kids to buy into it. Somebody’s going to be your best defender, somebody’s going to be your best guy in practice. Those guys are always just as important as anybody. I was really excited to see those guys get in and be able to make some plays and the other guys on the team be excited for them because that’s the family.”

The Cardinals’ next contest is a doubleheader with the girls team on the road against Paris Thursday night. The girls game is scheduled to tip at 6 p.m. and the boys game will follow.