Both Poplarville and Pearl River Central’s boys’ basketball teams headed down to the Gulf Coast Tuesday night and came back to Pearl River County with hardwood wins.

In Vancleave, Poplarville captured the championship of the Vancleave Christmas Classic Tournament with an exciting 79-75 win over the host team Bulldogs.

The game was the last for the Hornets before a three week break, and veteran Poplarville head coach John Miller indicated after a first round win over Greene County that he hoped his team would head into the break on a positive note and that’s exactly what the Hornets did.

Lavelle Henry and Ike Bowden did the most damage for the Hornets in the win over Vancleave, as Henry tallied 29 points and Bowden added 28 for the winners. Pierre Raine also chipped in 11 for Poplarville.

The Hornets are now 5-4, and will be off until resuming Division 8-4A play against Picayune on Tuesday, Jan. 9th.

Poplarville originally had a game slated for Thursday on the road at Petal, but Petal officials had to cancel the game and no make-up date could be agreed upon.

Vancleave fell to 5-9 with the loss, and got 29 points from Colin McRae.

• Just over the county line in D’Iberville, Pearl River Central won its fourth straight game with a 62-56 win over the homestanding Warriors.

The game was a preview of what will become a Division 8-4A contest next season when D’Iberville joins the league.

Shaun Daniels tallied 17 points to led the Blue Devils, while Brandon Truman added 15 and Bradley Baker 14 to the winning cause.

PRC is now 8-5 on the year.

Jacoby Bell scored 15 to pace D’Iberville, which fell to 10-4 with the loss.

In girls’ action, PRC fell to 4-11 with a 50-38 loss to D’Iberville despite getting 12 points from Brooke Eccles.

Both PRC teams will host Purvis on Thursday night before taking a brief Christmas break.