Friday night marked the first time Warren Central and Vicksburg had played each other in a regular-season basketball game at night in almost 20 years. The girls’ game featured something almost as rare — a blowout.

Warren Central held Vicksburg to two points in the first quarter and one field goal in the first half while building a 33-point lead, and went on to beat the Missy Gators 72-33.

The 39-point final margin was the largest in the series since a 35-point Warren Central win in 2009. The last 12 meetings since 2011 had all been decided by eight points or less.

“I told my girls the same scenario is usually they play above their level and it’s usually a good game — but there was an opportunity to go on and close them out and jump on them early. We just came out thinking we would do that, and it happened,” Warren Central coach Jackie Glass said.

Amber Gaston led Warren Central (7-2) with 27 points and seven rebounds, and Cocoa Fultz added 13 points and six rebounds as the tandem tore Vicksburg (2-5) up inside all game long. They had 25 of the Lady Vikes’ 41 points in the first half and were a combined 17-for-25 from the field in the game.

“You’ve got to utilize your size. We were trying to look in more so as the season goes on and we come to the end they should be used to those opportunities,” Glass said. “We still missed a lot of easy opportunities around the goal, but we’re getting better.”

Gaston and Fultz outscored the Missy Gators by themselves, but the way the latter was shooting it seemed like five people plucked from the capacity crowd could have done better. The Missy Gators were a miserable 6-for-47 (12.7 percent) shooting. They were better on free throws, hitting 17 of 26 attempts, but the cold streak from the field put them in a deep hole early that there was no digging out of.

Vicksburg went nearly eight minutes without scoring at one point in the first half. Its only field goal was a long jumper from the left corner by Gada Clay with 2:35 left in the second quarter. By then Warren Central had gotten out to a 39-7 lead.

Vicksburg was 1-for-18 from the field in the first half.

Pleasure King wound up leading Vicksburg with nine points. Eriel Bunch finished with seven points, seven rebounds and four steals. Maya Clay had five points, eight rebounds and two blocked shots.

“The first half, we couldn’t buy a bucket. We were taking the shots and they were getting there and just were not falling. But it seemed like everything Warren Central threw up there was going in. The defense and rebounding was there. It just was the shots,” said Vicksburg assistant coach Deborah Brown. Brown led the Missy Gators on Friday while head coach Barbara Hartzog was away because of a death in the family.

Glass admitted that the blowout had as much to do with Vicksburg’s bad shooting as her team’s solid defense. She added, however, that it was still good to get another easy win after struggling a bit in November.

Warren Central beat Wingfield and Vicksburg this week by 40 and 39 points, respectively, and surpassed the 70-point mark in both games. In its first seven games it didn’t score more than 54 points and it had lost two in a row before beating Wingfield on Tuesday.

“It’s been good for our confidence. It’s given us a chance and an opportunity to try to run some things and get the ball inside in a time where it’s not as stressful,” Glass said.