ROBERTSDALE, Ala. – A back-and-forth first half resulted in a 26-26 score at the intermission Friday night in Robertsdale where the Daphne Trojans boys basketball team prevailed to take an important 55-47, 6A Area 3 win over the Golden Bears.

The Trojans remained undefeated (4-0) in Area 3 with the win by stepping up the defensive pressure in the second half, especially the fourth quarter.

Trailing by six, 44-38, at the end of three periods, DHS revved up the D in the fourth and held the Bears to three points, all from the free-throw line while retaking and holding the lead. Seven of Daphne's 11 fourth-quarter points were from the line.

Daphne coach Cedric Yelding said the win was big, setting up the showdown at Fairhope on Feb. 1, but his team can't look too far ahead.

“We still have to play Fairhope and Foley,” he said. “This win was real big. It's never easy, but it made the road a little brighter. We have a big one in Fairhope. They play extremely well at home, and we can't look past Foley, even though they are young and haven't had much success.”

The Trojans (11-6 overall, 4-0 area) host Foley on Friday at 7:30 p.m. while Robertsdale (13-10, 3-3) will hit the road to Spanish Fort on Friday and again to Blount High Feb. 1.

Robertsdale coach Marshall Davis said the Trojans took possession of the tempo down the stretch and then forced too many turnovers for his team to overcome.

“Coach Yelding did a great job of taking them into halftime and challenging his kids to come in and play physical and that is what they did. They controlled the tempo of the game.

“We wanted to come out in the fourth quarter and control the tempo when we had a little lead but we had turnover after turnover after turnover. In the first half we had 13 turnovers and we probably ended the game with double that. They out-manned us and that was the difference.”

Yelding added that his players didn't take advantage of their size in the first half.

“I've been telling my guys all along that we are big and strong,” Yelding said. “The first half we played too fast. We don't have any reason to be trying to outrun people with our size. I told them at halftime we needed to slow down and make them guard us in the half-court. Those two big shot blockers they have, we got them into foul trouble tonight and I think that was the key.”

Preston Solomon scored a game-high 17 points, T.J. Yeldon added 11, Tyler Birch eight, Joe Menefee five while Justin Jackson and Zack Houston each had four for Daphne.

Kent Langham led RHS with 13 points, Dionta Banks added nine, Allen Ware had seven, Cordero Dade six and Calvin Dade five for the Golden Bears.

At the free throw line, Daphne was 15-of-24 total attempts while Robertsdale went 12-for-18 overall.

Robertsdale’s Kent Langham, a senior, was honored for having surpassed the 1,000-point career mark earlier this season. This is only his third year at Robertsdale.