CERRO GORDO - After an 18-day lay-off, the West Columbus High School boys basketball team returned to action Friday night and defeated the visiting St. Pauls Bulldogs 66-57 in a Southeastern 1A-2A Conference game.

“We felt we might be a little rusty since we didn’t play any games during the holidays,” said veteran Viking coach Michael Powell. “But we got off to a good start and then we came out after halftime and played pretty well.”

The Vikings put their season record at 9-2, including a 3-1 conference record.

Chaz Everette scored 20 points and had 11 rebounds and Mikey Bilal tallied 18 points. Bilal and Cortney Hayes each hit a pair of 3-point shots and Everette connected on one.

Mario Cisneros, the Vikings’ 6-foot-11 exchange student from Mexico, scored eight points and had 10 rebounds.

“Mario is getting more comfortable inside for us now and is doing some good things for us,” Powell said. “We’re rotating him in as much as we can now.”

Powell has a regular rotation of 10 players and he hopes this will be a plus during the second half of the season.

“The people we have coming off the bench have done a real good job and they mix well with our usual starters,” Powell said. “It’s good that we rest our people, especially against a team like St. Pauls that has a lot of good athletes.

Davishio Shaw was leading scorer for St. Pauls with 20 points. William McRae tallied 18 and William Bethea had 10.

“Both teams came out shooting the eyes out of it,” said Powell, whose squad led 24-19 after one quarter, but fell behind 35-34 at halftime.

The third quarter belonged to the Vikings as they outscored the Bulldogs 20-7.

“We made a defensive adjustment at halftime and just started playing better in the third quarter,” Powell said. “We have to be sharp from here on because there are no breathers in this conference.”

The Vikings have a big conference test this Friday when they play host to Southeastern Conference rival East Bladen. East Bladen is led by the all-around play of Leumichael “Mike-Mike” Smith.

West Columbus’ lone conference loss came against West Bladen, which leads the league with a 4-0 record.

Last season, the Vikings finished runnerup in Southeastern Conference regular season play and won the championship of the conference tournament.

St. Pauls won the girls game 49-32.

The loss put the West Columbus girls’ record at 0-4 in conference and 1-10 overall, but Lady Viking coach Pat Byrd said he was pleased with his team’s effort.

“We worked a lot on our shooting during the holiday break and tonight showed that we have improved in that area.

WCHS sophomore Alyssa Faulk hit all seven of her field goal attempts to finish with 14 points. Alex Ward had a big inside game, blocking six shots and collecting six rebounds.

BOYS GAME

ST. PAULS (57): Shaw 20, McRae 17, Bethea 10. Williams 6, Pone 2, Ray 2.

WEST COLUMBUS (55): Everette 20, Bilal 18, Cisneros 8, Hayes 6, Johnson 5, Ward 4, Leggett 4.