[12/27/03]BRANDON Sixteen minutes of great basketball helped Vicksburg High erase three weeks of frustration.

Brandon Harper led three Gators in double figures with 18 points and Vicksburg rallied from an eight-point halftime deficit to beat Brandon 61-49 in the first round of the Northwest Rankin Holiday Classic on Friday.

Johnny Markham added 12 points, Sedrick Williams had 10 and Willis McGowan chipped in nine for Vicksburg (6-8), which snapped a five-game losing streak and won for the first time since beating Port Gibson on Dec. 3. The Gators will face either Hazlehurst or Northwest Rankin in the second round tonight at 7:50.

DeMorian Melvin led Brandon with 21 points all on 3-pointers and Kenneth Walker had eight points and 10 rebounds.

“It’s great. It’s been a long time since we’ve won a ballgame, and that certainly feels good,” VHS coach Dellie Robinson said. “But you’ve got to give these kids all the credit. They fought hard and came to practice over the holidays, and we worked on some things.”

VHS jumped out to an 8-3 lead before Brandon’s DeMorian Melvin found his shooting stroke from 3-point range. Melvin connected on 6 of 8 3-pointers in the first half, accounting for 18 of the Bulldogs’ points as Brandon took a 32-24 lead into halftime.

When the teams came back out of the locker room, however, Melvin’s touch was gone and the Gators seized control of the game.

Using the press to force turnovers and easy layups, Vicksburg outscored Brandon 22-8 in the third quarter to take a 46-40 lead. Williams and McGowan each hit a 3-pointer with about a minute remaining to cap the period.

Vicksburg started to pour it on in the fourth quarter as Brandon (6-8) continued to self-destruct. Cedric Parson dropped in a layup off an assist from Williams, and Markham converted a steal into an easy layup to give the Gators a 52-41 lead with 6:11 to play in the game.

“Some people started making shots,” Robinson said. “We started to get the ball down inside to Cedric Parson a little bit more, and he made some shots down there, and (Harper) made some shots down there, and we got on a roll.”

Brandon had plenty of opportunities to close in, but went 4-for-13 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter. Melvin was just 1-for-5 from 3-point range in the second half, and the Bulldogs didn’t make a shot from the field until Roderick Harvey’s layup with a minute remaining.

“The concentration just wasn’t there,” Brandon coach Joezon Darby said. “And, again, when you’re dealing with 15-, 16-year-old kids and it’s around Christmas time, the focus is not where it needs to be.”

(G) Mendenhall 56, VHS 49

Vicksburg High struggled with an inconsistent offense and foul trouble for two of its top players, and lost to Mendenhall in the first round of the Northwest Rankin Holiday Classic.

Mendenhall outscored the Missy Gators 24-13 in the second quarter and held off several charges in the second half to win. Rededra Smith led the Lady Tigers with 28 points, while Tiffany Lawson had eight points and nine rebounds.

Erica Woodson scored 11 points, and Kristin Ellis led VHS with 13 points and 10 rebounds before fouling out midway through the fourth quarter. The Missy Gators’ other post player, Tiffany Hubbard, picked up two quick fouls in the first quarter and spent much of the first half on the bench.

“To put it plain and simple, today it seemed like every time I had to put Kristin Ellis on the bench was when Mendenhall would make a run,” VHS coach Mike Coleman said. “When she was in we were kind of able to control the boards, but when she was out we had a real hard time rebounding the basketball.”

Hubbard returned with a vengeance in the second half, though, and led Vicksburg’s final comeback attempt. She scored seven straight points in the fourth quarter as the Missy Gators (9-6) shaved a double-digit deficit to six points, 54-48, with 1:58 to play.

That was as close as the Missy Gators got. Their shooting went ice-cold in the last two minutes, with three badly missed 3-pointers, another missed jumper and three missed free throws sealing their fate.

“We just didn’t get the big shot to drop,” Coleman said. “We had some open looks, too.”

Vicksburg will face Madison-St. Joe today at 1:10 p.m. in the consolation bracket at Northwest Rankin.

(G) WC 57, Wingfield 46

Cookie Johnson scored 18 points and Warren Central survived a sluggish second half to defeat Wingfield in the opening round of the JPS Pepsi Tournament.

The Lady Vikes (10-4) took a 30-16 lead into halftime, but were outscored 17-10 in the third quarter. Warren Central came back with a 17-13 final quarter to secure the win.

“We jumped on them early and came out in the second half and didn’t play well in the third quarter,” WC coach Donny Fuller said. “I think we showed the effects of not playing in three weeks.”

Brittany Banks scored nine points for the Lady Vikes, and Tranyce Peoples added eight.

Warren Central will face Canton today at 2 p.m. at Lanier.