Pleasant Home bested Florala in a defensive struggle Friday night in Florala, defeating the Wildcats 36-24. The Eagles improved to 2-0 in area play while the Wildcats fell to 1-1.

Following the game, both coaches said their teams played solid defense but had woeful nights shooting the ball.

“It was pretty ugly,” Pleasant Home coach Jerry Davis said. “We didn’t hit a shot of any kind tonight. (Florala) did a good job defensively; we had shots, but we didn’t make them.

“We got the job done defensively, that wasn’t a problem. We just couldn’t get the ball in the hole at all.”

“I thought we played good enough defense to win,” Florala coach Brad Garner said. “We just couldn’t find points anywhere. We’ve got to figure out how to get production from somebody.”

Pleasant Home (10-6, 2-0 in Class 1A, Area 3) took a 15-6 lead after the first quarter, but could never pull away late. The Eagles led 24-13 at halftime and 30-19 at the end of the third quarter.

“We started out gangbusters,” Davis said. “And then I thought (Florala) did a nice job defensively the rest of the way.

“I don’t have a lot of complaints about our defense — when you give up 22 points, that’s pretty much as good as it’s going to get.”

Garner said he was concerned that his team had reverted to some previous habits. Florala (1-12, 1-1) was coming off its first win of the season, a 59-49 victory over area opponent Kinston on Tuesday.

“We could get to the hole with the ball some, but couldn’t finish,” Garner said. “We had this problem earlier in the year, and we had gotten better in recent games, but tonight it was like we reverted back to the start of the year.

“But you have to give Pleasant Home credit. They have some guys who are long, and every shot we took tonight was challenged.”

Ethan King led Pleasant Home with 19 points, followed by Emory Rabren with eight. Dustin Hinson had six points to lead the Wildcats, and Eric Bess added five.

In the girls game, Pleasant Home defeated Florala 47-26. Justina Clissold led the Lady Wildcats with 13 points.

Brittany Ward had 13 to lead the Lady Eagles. Erin Byrd added 12 and Ariel Gunter chipped in 10.

Pleasant Home and Florala both hit the road for their next games Tuesday. The Eagles will travel to Kinston and Florala will visit McKenzie.