Warren Central’s boys basketball program spent the first month of the season more or less treading water while several starters finished up their obligations with the football team. It’ll spend the next month re-integrating those returning players into the lineup to prepare for division play in January and the postseason in February.

It’s a long, intricate process, but phase two of the plan got off to a good start.

Shonterrance Walton scored a game-high 24 points and Chavis Smith added 16 as the Vikings beat Wingfield 60-58 in overtime Tuesday night. Raleigh Floyd added 10 points, including a key basket with a little over a minute left in overtime that padded the Vikings’ slim lead.

Warren Central (4-2) snapped a two-game losing streak in its first game since Nov. 26.

“This rotation, we’re still trying to figure it out. This is the first time we’ve had a full complement of what we think we’re going to have to work with. So we’re back at the experimental stage with certain things,” Warren Central coach Bruce Robinson said. “We got out and pressed a little bit more. We’re just trying to figure what we need to do, who we need to play to move forward to get better as a team.”

Warren Central and Wingfield (1-8) traded runs throughout the game, and neither was ever able to pull away from the other. Warren Central closed the first half on an 8-0 run and had a 12-2 run in the third quarter, but those only gave it small leads. Wingfield blunted the momentum with a couple of well-timed baskets each time to keep things close.

The end result was a back-and-forth fourth quarter in which each basket seemed to change the lead. Smith hit a floater in the lane to give Warren Central a 53-52 advantage with 35 seconds left in regulation, but LeAndre Thomas split a pair of free throws with 6.5 seconds remaining to tie it.

Smith had one last chance to win it in regulation, but his contested 3-pointer from the left wing was no good and Warren Central went to overtime for the first time this season.

The duel continued in the extra period until Jalen Allen drove in from the left side and hit a short basket to give the Vikings a 56-55 lead with about 1:30 to go. Floyd hit a similar shot 20 seconds later, and after Thomas missed a tying 3-pointer with 10 seconds left, Walton drained two free throws to seal it.

Devyon Dampeer hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer for Wingfield. It was Dampeer’s fifth 3-pointer of the game, and he finished with 15 points. Thomas scored 14 and Alfonzo Green had 11 for the Falcons.

“I saw we’ve got a little quickness that we probably could be a pretty good pressing team. I saw a little more grit than we showed in our previous two losses. When we won those three I told the kids they were tougher than other teams, and I think I saw that tonight,” Robinson said. “But we’ve got a long way to go. We’ve got some mental mistakes we’ve got to take care of.”

(G) Warren Central 75, Wingfield 35

The Warren Central Lady Vikes bounced back and broke out against Wingfield.

Amber Gaston had 17 points and seven rebounds, and Dee Dee Caldwell had 16 points and seven rebounds as the Lady Vikes (6-2) snapped a two-game losing streak with their highest point total of the season.

“After two losses you wanted to have success tonight and go into your next rivalry game with a good win and a good game,” said Warren Central coach Jackie Glass, whose team will play at Vicksburg High on Friday night.

The Lady Vikes have been winning games this season, but not scoring a lot of points. They only scored 27 in their last outing, Nov. 26 at Starkville, and had not scored more than 54 before Tuesday night.

They used a stifling press defense to generate steals and transition baskets against Wingfield, and had no problem piling up the points. The Lady Vikes had 30 steals in the game and surpassed their previous scoring high on a layup by Aniya Sanders with just under two minutes left in the third quarter.

Warren Central opened the game with an 8-0 run and never trailed.

“I felt like if we could pressure the ball the whole game, that’s how you get transition baskets and that worked in our favor tonight,” Glass said.

Kiara Lockhart finished with six points, 10 rebounds and six steals for Warren Central. Chae White had seven points and six steals, Sanders had eight points and nine rebounds, and Da’Sha McGloster added 14 points and five steals.

Nine of Warren Central’s 12 players scored at least two points.

Alexis Luckett led Wingfield (2-5) with 11 points.

“I stressed to them that some of the other teams this particular team had been playing had been scoring high numbers, and if you want to feel like you can compete with them you’ve got to go out there and put some numbers up too,” Glass said. “So I was really big on seeing if we could get it going offensively because we have been pretty low in our scoring.”

(G) Germantown 50, Vicksburg 47

Kyndell Hardeman scored 16 points and Andy Duran added 14 as Germantown (5-4) beat Vicksburg (2-4) on Tuesday night.

Kerricka McRunnells led the Missy Gators with 11 points. Pleasure King scored eight and Maya Clay had seven.

“It was a great game with a lot of hustle. We did not get back in transition a couple of times, didn’t pressure the ball the way we should have. I think that this is one of our better played games,” said

Vicksburg assistant coach Deborah Brown, who coached the team Tuesday and will lead them again Friday against Warren Central. Head coach Barbara Hartzog is away this week because of the death of her father.

(B) Vicksburg 67, Germantown 32
Raheam Moore scored 20 points for his second straight game in double figures since returning from football, and the Vicksburg Gators (6-1) routed Germantown (2-6).

Kirk Parker added 12 points for the Gators, Joe Thomas had 10 and Dentarius Richardson scored nine.