West Point's Riley Voce dribbles up the court.

HANCEVILLE — With his West Point varsity boys holding a small three-point advantage over Hanceville entering the fourth quarter, coach Randy Jones’ advice was short and simple.

“You know what to do, so go do it.”

The third-seeded Warriors took the message to heart, outscoring the No. 6 Dawgs by 15 points in the final eight minutes to ease past their rival 74-56 in the Cullman County Basketball Tournament on Tuesday.

Color Jones unsurprised.

“They never panicked any and always knew they were going to be OK,” he said. “We’re battle-tested. We went through that tough game versus a good Lawrence County squad last Friday and it stuck on us. Right before the fourth quarter, I just told them what they already knew. My guys just went out there and did it.”

Hanceville got off to a fast start, grabbing a 18-13 cushion after the first quarter on the back on four 3-pointers.

The Warriors fought tooth-and-nail in the next frame with buckets from all over the floor to take a one-point lead heading into the locker room — much to the delight of Jones.

His squad only received scoring contributions from the starters but each player netted at least 11 points in the balanced attack.

“That’s what this team is,” Jones said. “You can’t just stop one player if our other guys are stepping up and hitting shots.”

The Bulldogs packed in a zone to slow Ryder Jones’ big-time production inside the paint, only to yield 10 treys to the Warriors — six of them came from Will Wrenn — in the contest.

“We figured they play zone, so that’s what we practice against,” Wrenn said. “Ryder has been great for us. Teams have to double him and we are finally able to knock down some shots now. That is making us a lot more well-rounded as a team.”

Even with the Maroon and White’s offensive showcase, Hanceville just wasn’t going to go away.

The Dawgs trailed by seven midway through the third quarter before a trio of treys — one from Jose Orozco and two by C.J. White — evened it up at 46-46. West Point answered quickly with back-to-back buckets to halt the momentum, though, as time winded down in the frame.

Then came the defense.

West Point allowed just four points to Daniel Wakefield’s group while forcing myriad turnovers, bad passes and awkward shots — one familiar staple under Jones — to grab the game by the horns. In the meantime, a quick 9-0 run forced a Bulldog timeout to staunch the bleeding.

Too little, too late.

“I told our guys when we made that last run there, the key was defense,” Jones said. “We got a few transition buckets on the turnovers. Credit to Hanceville. When a group shoots as well as they did, it’s going to make your defense look worse than it really is. I was proud of my guys.”

Added Wrenn: “We finally got it going in the fourth. We were kind of slow in the first three quarters but started playing defense late. That just allowed us to pull away and finally shake them off.”

Wrenn paced his team 22 points, while Bryant Farley (15), Jones and Levi Laney (13 each) and Tanner Rusk (11) rounded out the scoring.

Dant’e Reese and Xavier Malcom had double-digit showcases with 14 and 13 points, respectively. Christian Sellers (nine), White (eight), Isaac Weissend (six), Orozco (four) and Luke Duffie (two) also contributed.

The Warriors (17-9) will take on the winner of top-seeded Holly Pond and No. 7 Good Hope Friday at 7:30 p.m.

Regardless of which team West Point meets, Wrenn says it’s going to simply be about inward reflection.

“We’re focused on playing our best game every night,” he said. “Our guys want to get there Saturday night and win the whole thing. If that’s not your goal, what are you playing for? We’ll give it our all on Friday. Then we’ll see what happens.”