BY DAVID FOLSE II

Sports Editor

When you talk after the game about how many kids you got to play, you either lost or won by a lot.

Check the box of option number two for West St. John

Behind 11 points from Damian Morris and 10 points by Tyren Johnson, the Rams blitzed their way to a 69-35 win over McMain Monday night in the opening game of the Riverside Tournament.

Never trailing, West St. John (6-2) scored the first eight points of the game and held a 20-11 lead after the first quarter. The stifling Ram defense held McMain (7-9) scoreless for nearly the first three minutes of the game and without a field goal until 4:53 remaining in the opening quarter.

The lead continued to balloon in the second quarter as Morris and Johnson combined for eight points and a 43-17 lead.

It was the defense’s turn in the second half as McMain was held scoreless for nearly half of the third quarter and was limited to only six points in the fourth quarter as WSJ came out with the victory.

A happy head coach Antoine Edwards said after the game that he was pleased to be able to play so many players.

“I was really pleased that we were able to get a lot of kids in tonight,” Edwards said. “I dress out 12 and you want to try and get everybody in when you can. On some nights, kids are not going to get a chance to get in. Tonight was a fortunate night that allowed us to play a lot of kids because of the caliber of team that we played.

“I’m not taking anything away from McMain, but it was the kind of night that were able to get a lot of kids in and able to play.”

Going up against a smaller McMain squad Edwards knew the inside duo of Johnson and Denarold Anderson would be a factor.

“We’re pretty strong with Denarold and Tyren inside,” Edwards said. “Their size and height is very difficult to guard. We just thought that we had to go inside and I thought our guards did pretty well of shooting the ball from the outside. Everything on offense worked well for us tonight.”

He also said his team still needs to improve.

“We are still in the early stages of coming back to full strength because we had so many people that are coming back from playing football,” Edwards said. “We need all the work we can get and games like this allow us to work on certain things.”

Finishing with a team high 11 points, Morris echoed his coach’s sentiments.

“We played well out there tonight but we can definitely do better,” Morris said. “We have to improve on our free throw shooting and play harder defense if we want to be successful this season.”