NATCHEZ — Cathedral boys basketball coach Peter Arnold might be a little displeased he didn’t get a full-game effort out of his team, but the one half of great play his team did give him was plenty enough against Adams County Christian on Tuesday night.

Cathedral led by just six points at halftime, but outscored ACCS 50-22 in the second half to cruise to an 81-47 victory.

“If we can play for 32 minutes the way we played the second half tonight, we’re going to be a very good team,” Arnold said. “We’re not playing consistently that hard the whole game. We’ve got to consistently put up the effort on defense and rebounding to win games.”

Cathedral, which has lost four games this year by single digits, looked like it was in for another close affair after the first half, when the Green Wave had just a 31-25 advantage.

However, Arnold had his team switch to a full-court press defense in the second half, and it paid dividends quickly.

Cathedral forced numerous turnovers and turned them into easy baskets in the third quarter, as they outscored the Rebels 25-9 in the period.

“We double-teamed the ball really well and forced them to turn the ball over,” Arnold said. “We’ve got a lot of good, quick athletes, which works to our advantage.”

Arnold said the good depth he has on his roster also helps the team when it comes to preparing for games.

“That really helps in practice,” Arnold said. “Our players face quality competition in practice and it carries over to the games.”

ACCS head coach Rick Fife was disappointed in the way his players failed to handle the Cathedral pressure in the second half.

“We didn’t execute well at all,” Fife said. “You only have so many time outs you can use. We got out of our game, which is not a run game. We had one stretch where we had four or five turnovers in a row.”

Cathedral improved to 6-5 on the season while ACCS fell to 5-6.

Cathedral was led by Collin Hammons with 13 points while D.J. Perry scored 12 and Daniel Huffines tallied 10.

Theo King and Daniel Guedon led ACCS with 10 points each.

ACCS girls 49, Cathedral 25

The Adams County Christian Lady Rebels got off to a very slow start, but recovered nicely to post a 49-25 win over Cathedral on Tuesday.

ACCS led just 6-2 at the end of the first quarter, but outscored Cathedral 36-17 over the next two quarters to pull away for the victory.

The game was a showcase for ACCS’ Taylor Welch, who led all scorers with 26 points.

Brandis White chipped in 13 points for the Lady Rebels in the win.

Cathedral was led by Ginny Daggett with eight points and Ana Perry with seven.