HANCEVILLE — West Point didn’t play particularly well at the beginning or the leadup to the end but made it count in the middle, doubling up Good Hope in the second and third quarters Wednesday to eke out a 42-35 win.

Missed shots from point blank and empty trips to the charity stripe eventually gave way to a quartet of treys and much-improved production on D, allowing the Warriors to punch their ticket to Saturday’s championship in the Cullman County Basketball Tournament ninth-grade boys bracket.

For West Point coach Jimmy Harbison, the motto was simple — “advance and move on.”

“All the ninth-grade teams, this is the first time they’ve ever played on this floor. Little stars in their eyes when they come out here,” he said of Wallace State’s Tom Drake Coliseum. “But they settled down. It was an ugly win, but we’ll take it. The kids played hard.”

The three-time defending champion Warriors initially blew open a close game with a 16-5 second quarter. Riley Hawkins accounted for half of West Point’s four 3’s during the stretch and finished with a team-high 14 points.

“We were just clicking and we were doing what we were supposed to do with the plays,” Hawkins said. “It just finally started falling for us.”

The second-seeded Warriors stretched their advantage to 29-15 late in the third quarter before No. 3 Good Hope made one last run at the lead.

Kenneth Lyle took on the role of catalyst for the Raiders, and Mason Moniz, Isaac McDonald, Isaiah Lemus and Jerome Reynolds all made contributions down the stretch as Good Hope cut the deficit to just three on two separate occasions.

Hawkins ensured it was all for naught, however, sinking a pair of free throws and watching Kolton Easterwood corral West Point’s final three points to ice the outcome.

The Warriors were 9 of 14 from the stripe in the fourth quarter. The Raiders countered with a 9-of-13 clip.

“We finally buckled down at the end and finally got it going,” Hawkins said. “We played awful in the second half, but we finally stuck it I guess.”

Easterwood whipped up eight points for West Point. Dalton White and Matt McDonald both scored four points, and Austin Dubberly, Coby Sullins, Dante Callahan and Raylon Moore added three apiece.

Good Hope’s Lyle led all scorers with 15 points and matched Hawkins’ trey total of three. Other contributors for the Raiders were Moniz and Lemus, six points each; Isaac McDonald, five; and Reynolds, three.

West Point and Holly Pond will open Championship Saturday at 1 p.m. Harbison said facing the top-seeded Broncos will be a “big challenge” but was encouraged by how his Warriors closed the gap in the rivals’ second meeting of the season.

“We’re playing a lot better than we did Game 1 at Holly Pond, so we’ll see,” he said. “Lace ’em up and let’s go.”