The Cornersville Middle School Bulldogs fell to 0-2 on the young season when they suffered a 39-19 road loss to the New Prospect Tigers on Thursday night.

New Prospect controlled the game throughout and built a 19-7 lead in the first half before outscoring CMS 20-12 over the final two quarters to roll to the 20-point victory.

Bolstered by a 4-of-6 shooting performance from Jet Beasley, the Tigers held a 16-6 advantage in field goals while outrebounding the Bulldogs 32-27 overall.

'Growing pains'

"We had too many turnovers and threw the ball away. We need to slow the ball down and run our offense instead of trying to go 100 miles per hour. I like our effort, but we have to play smarter," said Cornersville coach Gerard Randolph. "We're young and I'm asking a lot of seventh graders to play a lot of minutes. This is new to them and they're going to have to go through some growing pains."

Beasley paced New Prospect with nine points, while Andrew Heath and Dustin Gage both tallied eight points. Justin Harvey also added six points and Hayes McNutt had four points. Logan Coleman and Jon David Bedford chipped in three and one point respectively for the Tigers as well.

Shooting guard Darien Bush was the biggest bright spot for the Bulldogs and led CMS with seven points, 10 rebounds, and three steals.

Good night

"Darien did well tonight. He rebounded and pushed the ball and did a good job driving to the basket and drawing some fouls," said Randolph.

Cameron Whitaker and Trenton Warren tallied three points apiece as well, while Will Vanhooser and Kolbe McMahon both notched two points. Eli Woodard and Caleb Crowell also scored one point each for Cornersville.

The Bulldogs held a 3-2 lead early in the first quarter thanks to a trey from Whitaker, but things quickly went downhill for CMS after that point, as New Prospect put together a 15-0 run to open up a 17-3 advantage with 3:54 left in the second period.

Closing gap

After Cornersville closed the gap to 19-7 at halftime with the help of a Bush layup and a pair of free throws from Crowell and Woodard, Bush hit a short runner at the start of the third quarter to cut the deficit to 19-9.

The Tigers quickly stemmed the Bulldogs' momentum and rattled off 12 straight points to forge a 31-9 lead late in the third period.

CMS engineered a 7-0 run behind three points from Bush and baskets from Vanhooser and McMahon to narrow the gap to 31-16 early in the fourth quarter, but New Prospect outscored the Bulldogs 8-0 over the next two minutes to push their lead 39-16 prior to claiming the 39-19 win.