Sakellie Daniels of Hoke County and Amber Wallace of Pinecrest are arguably two of the top guards in the Southeastern 4-A Conference.

Daniels scored 21 points at Pinecrest Tuesday to lead the Bucks to a 45-29 victory while Wallace watched by virtue of her season-ending fractured right tibia suffered five games ago.

Tiffany Hailey of the Patriots and Ebonie Brunson of the Bucks are pretty good running mates for Wallace and Daniels. But while the Patriot point guard was being limited to cameo appearances by early foul trouble, Brunson tacked on 10 points.

“She (Hailey) is our only experienced ball handler and she’s in foul trouble,” Patriot coach Barbara Foxx said. “She gets three quick fouls. She got pulled and put in. She got her fourth foul in less than 30 seconds. And then I put her back in again and in 30 more seconds she got her fifth foul.”

While the inexperience at the guard position contributed to 24 turnovers, the Patriots defended well and won the battle in the paint. They outrebounded Hoke 32-26 and outscored their front line players 19-12.

Fives times in the second half the Patriots found center Katrina Kelly open underneath, twice off high post passes from Adrena Nicholson. Kelly has knocked down 16-of-25 (64 percent) shots and averaged 12 points in her last three games.

“When we took what they gave us, we scored,” Foxx said. “When we took our time, like we are supposed to, and turned and looked at the basket, we hit Katrina wide open in front of the basket and she would finish. If we could get that teamwork going for four quarters, we would be okay.”

The Patriots trailed by 10 to 15 points most of the game. Turnovers, mainly of the unforced kind, quelled momentum chances.

“We are not doing a good job of reading the defense,” Foxx said. “That comes from inexperience.”

The Patriots had only eight players in uniform, as an ill Terrica Cattle joined the injured Wallace, Tiffany Ovbey and Katie Dossary in street garb.

Pinecrest falls to 2-6 in the conference and 7-10 overall. Hoke is second in the conference to tonight’s Pinecrest opponent Lumberton with a record of 7-1 and 12-7 overall. The contest at Lumberton (8-0, 17-1) begins at 6 p.m.

Box Score

Hoke 13 12 12 8 — 45

Pinecrest 4 12 6 7 — 29

Hoke — Daniels 6 8-9 21, Brunson 5 0-0 10, Monroe 1 0-0 2, Hodges 2 0-0 4, Blue 3 2-3 8, Chambers, Carthens, Almond, Samuels, McMillan. Totals – 17 10-12 45.

Pinecrest — Hailey 1 0-0 2, Dobbins 2 0-0 4, Kelly 5 0-0 10, Jones 2 1-1 5, Nicholson 1 3-4 5, Lawrence 1 1-3 3, Brown, Morriss. Totals – 12 5-10 29.

Three-point goals: Hoke 1 (Daniels).