Starting her second year as Porters Chapel Academy’s boys basketball coach, E.J. Creel knows it’s going to be sometime early in January when her team will be game ready. Until then, the Eagles will have to work through nights like Tuesday, when they committed 27 turnovers and made just 15 of 48 shots in a 54-37 loss to visiting University Christian.

“It’s going to take time. The guys still have that football mentality. Football shape is not basketball shape and then we also had to deal with the holiday. I’ve only had them together three times and we still don’t have Clayton Holmes,” Creel said.

Holmes is out this week, practicing for Friday’s MPSA All-Star game at Mississippi College in Clinton. Holmes quarterbacked the PCA football team to the Academy A semifinals, but Creel says he will be a big addition to the basketball team as well.

“Clayton is an athlete first, he’s big, and he’s mentally tough and that’s going to make an impact for us. I expect us to be a lot better team in the second half of the season,” Creel said.

PCA (0-2, 0-2) is coming off a 38-37 road loss at Rebul on Monday. They gave the Flames a tough half before falling apart on offense in the second half. The Eagles committed 15 of their 27 turnovers in the second half.

“We wanted to pressure the ball and hopefully that would wear them down, and it did,” Flames coach David McElveen said. “We go 10 deep so I thought our depth would pay off. We had good openings in the first half, but we just didn’t get the ball there. We finally settled down in the second half and got the ball to the right spots.”

The Flames used a 9-2 run to open the second half to turn a 24-20 halftime lead into a 33-22 edge. Two late baskets by Jeremy Roach, who led PCA with 14 points, kept the Eagles within 13 at 41-28 going to the fourth quarter.

UCS, though, scored the first eight points of the final quarter to go up 21 and then cruised home.

All 10 of McElveen’s players scored in the contest. None were in double figures until Zack Holyfield scored three of the team’s first four baskets in the fourth quarter to finish with 12 points. Four others had at least six points.

Jacob Rachal had nine points and nine rebounds while Jay Wiley two points, 10 rebounds and three steals.

Wiley’s scoop shot with a minute left in the second quarter pulled PCA to within 22-20.

University Christian girls hammer PCA

The Flames outscored PCA 29-2 in the third quarter to blow open the home opener for the Lady Eagles (0-2, 0-2).

Lindsay England scored 19 of her game high 29 points in the quarter and PCA turned the ball over 14 times. Sarah Spann and Alex Gregory each had 13 for UCS (5-3, 4-0).

Paige Moore led PCA with 14 points while Amanda Bufkin and Shelby Wells had eight each.