MADISON — It wasn't pretty but the Chapmanville Regional High School boys' basketball team will take it.

Any time you beat rival Scott — especially on the road — the win is a good win.

Chapmanville indeed did beat the Skyhawks with Friday night's 54-44 victory at the Scott High School gym.

The Tigers, winners of four straight games, improved to 11-5 overall and 7-2 in the Cardinal Conference. With the win, Chapmanville stayed in a virtual three-way tie for first place in the league standings with Tolsia and Sissonville.

Scott, which was swept by the Tigers this season, also losing 76-63 at Chapmanville, fell to 6-10, 5-6.

Mike Hurst and Matt Cook each posted 18 points for Chapmanville, which rallied to outscore Scott 35-23 in the second half. Kenny Plumley and Dustin Smith each tallied six points, while leading scorer Mackenzie Martin was held to four points. Justin Mullins chipped in with two points.

Cody Brown and Matt Dolan led the Skyhawks with 12 and 10 points respectively. Alex Ables had eight, while Jonathan Rankin and Tyler Scott had four each. Kirk Price, Anthony Sigmon and Brandon Lufauci all had two points.

Chapmanville outscored the Skyhawks 14-12 in the third to pull even at 33. The Tigers then outscored Scott 21-11 in the fourth to notch the victory.

The Tigers led just 8-6 after one quarter as both teams had trouble putting the ball in the hole.

In the second quarter, the shooting woes continued.

Chapmanville, though, was able to take a 19-14 lead as Martin scored on a 15-foot turnaround jumper. Cook also fueled the run with a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws.

Scott rallied back, however, to take a 21-19 lead at the half. Brown hit a 3 to tie the game at 19 with 1:01 left, then it was Dolan's hoop with 45 ticks to go which put the Skyhawks on top by two at the half. Scott ended the second quarter on a 9-2 run.

Coach Harry Kirk's Tigers are scheduled to return to action on Tuesday night at home vs. Poca in a Cardinal Conference contest. It's the first meeting between the Tigers and the Dots this season. Game time is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. CRHS then goes to Tolsia on Feb. 10 and then to Sissonville on Feb. 17 in a pair of key league contests.

In other Cardinal Conference action on Friday night, Sissonville won 72-70 at home over Herbert Hoover to improve to 14-3 overall and 7-2 in the league. Tolsia, a winner over Wayne on Friday night, is now at 8-2 in the conference, one-half game ahead of the Indians and the Tigers in the standings.

• In Scott’s other games at the end of January, the Skyhawks jumped out to a big lead early in the 2nd quarter in its game against Sissonville on Jan. 27.

Cody Brown really helped the team’s surge by hitting two big three-point shots in the first and scoring 22 points for the game. Alex Ables got six of his 11 total points in the first.

Sissonville also got hot with three-point shots, according to Scott Coach Nick Cabell.

“Coach Skeens made the defensive call midway through the 2nd quarter to go with zone defense,” he explained. “We did a really good job against their man-man defense, but when they switched to a zone, we acted like we didn’t know what to do. We tell our kids everyday at practice to attack the zone, move, and get the ball to the high or low post. We didn’t do any of that. We passed the ball around the perimeter and let them get back in it.”

Scott made a run in the final quarter, and cut the lead to 2 or 4 points several times.

“If they would have missed a couple foul shots we could have won this ballgame,” Coach Linville said. “For our kids to come back from 10 to 14 down really says a lot about them. We just have to stop letting other teams make these runs on us and play an entire game the way we know we can.”