WILLIAMSTON — In the first game of the Four Rivers Conference tournament Riverside coach Hughes Barber’s team didn’t exactly get off to the hot start he was looking for but his Knights were able to finish in much finer fashion to top South Creek 61-47 on Monday.
The win moves the No. 1 seeded Knights (23-2) into the second round of the tournament where they will face No. 5 Perquimans on Wednesday at South Creek High School.
Riverside, who split the conference championship with Southside and was awarded the No. 1 seed via coin flip, opened the conference tourney against the same Cougars (4-21) team they topped 62-28 in the regular season finale.
Though they won that matchup comfortably, the Knights were not ready for the No. 8 Cougars who came out clawing in the first quarter. Point guard Kim Mobley erupted for seven-first quarter points and after eight minutes of play the two teams went into the second quarter locked nine apiece.
Mobley would go on to terrorize the Knights in the open court as she scored a game-high 28 points with most of them coming in transition or at the free throw line.
That effort would not be enough to lift South Creek as a balanced Riverside attack combined with an effective press would lead to a 19-6 Knights’ run in the second quarter to put them up 28-15 at halftime.
“I don’t know if it’s because we played the same team last Thursday and we had to come back and play them again but we came out not really intense on defense and we threw away the ball on offense,” Barber said. “(South Creek) came out scrappy and was playing good physical defense.”
Aside from Mobley, the Cougars had only one other person in score points for them heading into the fourth quarter in Sasha Hall who would tally 10 points.
The Knights, who extended their lead to 48-26 by the start of the fourth quarter, ended up with 14 players entering the scoring column and were led by Queenie Little who recorded 10 points.
“When we played with intensity that’s when we were able to make our run,” Barber said. “I got on them in the second quarter and we played more intense and in the third quarter we played better on defense.”
For the Cougars, Monday night’s loss likely signifies the end of their season.
“We just got tired. We put up a good fight but we rushed things a little too much,” South Creek coach Greg Exum said.
Though the 2011-12 season had its share of struggles, Exum feels the future looks bring for his young team.
“We’re young, we got five sophomores coming back and three juniors so hopefully we can be better next year,” Exum said. “We need to work in the offseason and get stronger and better but we can only do that if the underclassmen show up to the work outs and want to get better.”

South Creek    9    6    11    20    –    47
Riverside    9    19    20    13    –    61
Cougars (47)
Kim Mobley 28, Sasha Hall 10, Creswell 2, Van Nortwick 2, Purvis 2, Outlaw 2.
Knights (61)
Queenie Little 11, Wynn 5, Wilson 4, Armstrong 1, Moore 4, Brown 8, Gaddt 4, Whitley 2, Brown7, McCray 2, Slade 5, Griffin 5, Burnett 2.