WAKEFIELD—Tidewater Academy slowly built up a 19-point first half lead, and used two big runs en route to a 63-41 win over Southampton Academy in a Virginia Commonwealth Conference boys’ basketball game Tuesday night.

Casey Rickmond scored 12 of his 17 points in the first quarter as the Warriors (5-0) built an 11-point lead. After SA’s Wade Martin knocked down a 3-ball to cut the Tidewater Academy lead to 17-13 with 1:57 to play in the first quarter. The Warriors then scored the last seven points of the quarter to go up 24-13.

SA (0-2) cut the lead to 26-19 on a 3-pointer by Zach Best with 5:23 to play in the half, but the Warriors took command of the game with a 14-2 run to end the first half with a 40-21 lead.

Tidewater’s lead was never threatened throughout the second half.

Southampton Academy played the contest with just seven players. Michael Milteer and Storm Gray are out with injuries.

Tommie Starkes scored 16 points and Will Doyle added seven points for the Warriors. Martin scored 18 points, all on 3-pointers, for the Raiders.

Tidewater Academy head coach Walter Westbrook gave a lot of credit to SA for competing with just five full time varsity players.

“Southampton has good athletes and successful athletic programs over there and they are going to compete,” Westbrook said. “I thought they outhustled us and outshot us. We were fortunate that we had some easy breakaway baskets.

“I thought we were stale at times tonight, and I give them the credit for making us stale,” Westbrook added. “I was just not really happy the way we ran our offense. They played hard and I can see why they gave Franklin a good game last week.”

Southampton Academy head coach Hudson Bryant said he hoped the Warriors would have an off night.

“I expected them to shoot pretty well. They shot over 50 percent from the 3-point line. If they do that, they are not going to lose to too many teams. I was kind of hoping they would have an off night and we would be able to stay with them,” Bryant said. “I am proud of our effort offensively. Defensively, we could have done better. We gave up some layups and didn’t do a good job of holding them to one shot.”