SOUTH POINT — Work is not a four-letter word to the South Point Pointers.

The Pointers continued to work hard defensively as they shut down the Coal Grove Hornets 61-39 Friday in an Ohio Valley Conference game.

South Point took a 15-8 lead at the end of the first quarter, then held the Hornets to just 4 points in the second quarter as the lead stretched to 30-12.

“They made us work and then we just had to wear them down,” said Pointers’ coach Chris Barnes.

“We had a really good effort on the boards by our big men. (Ethan) Prater had a nice game rebounding and (Jordan) Bruton did a good job on their point guard.”

Blake Barnes scored 16 of his game-high 21 points over the second and third quarter as he sparked a third quarter that saw the Pointers (6-3) outscore the Hornets 17-10 and build a comfortable 47-22 lead.

“The third quarter was the game. We had very good ball movement. (Kyle) Winkler came in and made a some really good passes to Blake,” said coach Barnes.

South Point — co-leaders in the OVC with a 4-0 record — led by as many as 31 points.

Besides Barnes’ 21 points, Prater added 9 points and Winkler 8 in the balanced offense.

“We played extremely good defense once again,” said coach Barnes.

Wayne Sparks scored 11 points to lead the Hornets (7-3, 1-3).

Coal Grove 8 4 10 17 = 39

South Point 15 15 17 14 = 61

COAL GROVE (7-3, 1-3): Evan Ferguson 1 1 2-4 7, Wayne Sparks 2 2 1-2 11, Oakie Haynes 3 0 1-2 7, Cody Damron 0 0 0-2 0, Devin Monnier 2 1 0-0 7, Rye Goodwin 1 0 5-7 7, Dion Cunningham 0 0 0-1 0. Totals: 9 4 9-18 39. Fouls: 15. Fouled out: None.

SOUTH POINT (6-3, 4-0): Tevin Mitchell 0 2 0-1 6, Austin Jeffreys 0 0 0-0 , Jordan Button 1 0 2-2 4, Blake Barnes 4 4 1-3 21, Kyle Winkler 1 2 0-0 8, Jordan Bruton 2 1 0-0 7, Powers 0 0 0-0 0, Casey Schmidt 0 0 0-0 0, Chris Christian 0 0 0-0 0, Ethan Prater 4 0 1-2 9, Cody Taylor 1 0 0-0 2, Greg Taylor 2 0 0-0 4. Totals: 15 9 4-8 61. Fouls: 17. Fouled out: None.