With a week remaining in the high school basketball regular season, first year Enterprise head coach Blaine Roberts has both of his teams sitting in first place of Region 8-1A.

On Monday, the Yellow Jackets hosted Sacred Heart Catholic for a pair of region games that had been postponed from last week due to foul weather.

The Enterprise girls raced out the gate to a huge lead and cruised to a 52-16 win, a sixth straight victory that makes the team 15-8 overall and 6-0 in division play.

The boys’ team followed that up with a 60-55 win over the SH Crusaders. That moves Roberts boys’ squad to 16-8 overall and 7-0 in Region 8-1A.

Resurrection Catholic is a member of the region that only fields a basketball team on the boys’ side. On Tuesday, the EAC boys will travel to Pascagoula to face Resurrection Catholic, a team they beat by 25 points in the first meeting earlier this month.

The regular season ends on Friday, with the biggest set of division games in recent Enterprise history. That’s when Roberts takes his teams to Lumberton.

Back on Jan. 14, Enterprise took both games at home over the Panthers from Lumberton, winning the girls’ matchup 54-42 and the boys’ game 69-63.

The Enterprise boys know they’ll be the top seed in the Region 8-1A tournament hosted by Salem next week, as the win over Sacred Heart on Monday assured that. Still, they’d like to finish with an unbeaten record in regular season division play, a height that no one can remember last seeing the program reach.

The girls’ team sits one game ahead of Lumberton in the standings. The Lumberton Panthers are 14-4 overall and 5-1 in division play. Lumberton is also a program that went 25-7 last season and finished as the MHSAA 1A runners-up after a two-point loss to Blue Mountain in the 1A girls’ state championship. 

The Enterprise girls have put some grade-A-thumpings on their region opponents this season. They beat East Marion 58-11 and 55-2. They beat Sacred Heart 55-12 when the teams played in Hattiesburg.

On Monday, Robert’s crew led 20-2 after the first quarter and 40-11 at halftime. The Jackets guarded with a full-court, man-to-man defense and ran players in and out with a full five on five set of substitutions.

“I haven’t really had a set starting lineup all year for the girls,” said Roberts. “We just look at the matchups and make adjustments and the girls have really responded to that. We brought players off the bench tonight like Miranda Anderson, who can and has started this year. Her willingness to do whatever helps the team win is a good reflection of how coachable this group has been.” 

Roberts started 6-foot junior Caitlin Case, senior forward Natalie Williams, sophomore guard Mikayla Price, senior shooter Kailee Nuckles and eighth grader Piper Martin on Monday.

The offense flows through Case, who Roberts uses as a point-forward in the half-court set. She attacks the basket and pairs well with Williams, who gets it done inside using her hustle and effort.

It probably wasn’t much fun for the handful of Sacred Heart supporters who’d made the drive from Hattiesburg, but the opening two quarters gave the Jacket fans on the home side plenty to cheer about. Price and Martin doggedly guarded in the backcourt, forcing turnovers that led to wide open 3-point attempts.

Enterprise made six 3-pointers in the first half, with Nuckles knocking down two of them to start the game.

Anderson, junior Maddie Jergins, freshman Sarah Burgess, junior Johna Claire Haralson and senior Jayden Keene made up the second shift when Roberts called for his first group of substitutes.

Williams led the way with 14 points, while Case scored 12 points. Keene added nine points, Nuckles scored six points, Anderson scored three points as did Price. Martin scored four points and Haralson rounded out the EAC scoring with two points.

The 15 wins thus far for the Enterprise girls’ team is the most for the program in a single season since the 2016-2017 team went 15-11 overall.

Williams scored 23 and Case had 15 points in the win earlier this month over Lumberton.

The victory over Sacred Heart was a closer one for the EAC boys’ team on Monday, but it looked even closer on paper after the Crusaders hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer after the Jackets had put the game away late at the free throw line.

Sacred Heart came into the game with a 57-54 loss at home to Enterprise on Jan. 3 as the only blemish of its region record.

The Crusaders were bigger than the Jackets inside, as 6-foot-3 junior forward Luke Davey scored 13 points for Sacred Heart, all of them coming at the bucket.

What EAC lacks in size, they make up for in effort.

Roberts started senior Landon McNickles, junior Jonathan McNickles, senior Tre Vining, junior Ra’Jayvion Haygood, and junior Patrick Pendleton.

Landon McNickles has long been the leading scorer for the program through a period that’s seen him play for three different head coaches in a span of three years. Jonathan McNickles plays with a high basketball IQ, Pendelton is a confident shooter, Haygood rebounds like his life depends on it, and Vining has put in extra work to step up after a couple presumed starters decided not to play this season.

The game was one of runs, as Enterprise sprinted out to a 9-3 advantage early and then trailed 12-11 just after the start of the second quarter.

Later in the second eight minutes of action, the Jackets had pulled ahead 21-14, only to see the Crusaders close the quarter on a tear that put the visitors up 23-21 at halftime.

The McNickles brothers started to assert themselves over the opening minutes of the second half to put Enterprise back in control.

Landon McNickles made a driving layup to tie the game on the first play of the third quarter.

EAC outscored Sacred Heart 23-12 over the third quarter with Jonathan McNickles scoring nine of his team-high 16 points during that run.

What does it mean to say that Jonathan McNickles plays with a high basketball IQ as mentioned before?

It means that the 5-foot-10 guard/forward doesn’t take bad shots and plays with the patience of someone who understands what good can come from reversing the ball against a zone and being ready to shoot when he touches it next.

He plays hard and physical and was all over the court on Monday despite having a banged up knee that he’d been icing prior to tipoff.

The 5-foot-8 Haygood has a similar game, as he rebounds balls outside his area with reckless abandon. He finished with 14 points.

It was a good sign that on a night where Landon McNickles didn’t have his jumper working, he still scored 12 points and his team picked up the victory, even with both he and his brother battling foul trouble in the second half.

Pendleton also finished with 12 points, making two 3-pointers in the game. Vining finished with six points.

Michael Magee, Jiles Williams, and Marquez Yarbrough all came off the bench for EAC during the win.

Enterprise finished second in its region last season and hosted a playoff game for the first time in a long time under former coach Rusty Newman, who was at the school for only one season before moving on to Loyd Star.

Roberts had to wait for most of his guys to finish up a playoff run in football and when the season started, the Jackets lost their first five times out.

Since then, the team has gelled and improved, going 16-3 after that 0-5 start.

“I think that’s probably what I’m most proud of, how we didn’t fold up when we started with five straight losses,” said Roberts. “They’re a group of guys that are hungry to be coached and they’ve put a lot of trust in me and I’ve got a lot of trust in them.” 

That was evident in the second half on Monday, as Sacred Heart kept battling behind a game-high 23 points from their leading scorer, Raider Williams.

Roberts didn’t call timeouts in panic when things got close, instead letting his team play through their mistakes and get some easy scores by breaking the pressure used by Sacred Heart.

With a single digit lead and less than two minutes left on the clock, EAC spaced the court and made sure Landon McNickles had room to operate as they bled the clock down.

After McNickles dribbled through an attempted trap and went to the free throw line to ice the game, his coach lauded his tough play from the bench.

Roberts was a tough player himself back in the day, suiting up at Brookhaven Academy and earning All-Area MVP honors before signing to play at Copiah-Lincoln CC.

He worked outside of education for a number of years, before going back to finish his degree and beginning his coaching journey at North Pike Middle School last year.

You can see how much fun he’s having in his first crack at being a high school head coach.

“We really went back to the fundamentals this summer with the girls,” said Roberts. “We wanted to get better at dribbling and passing before I ever started working on our offense. It’s really fun to see the confidence they have now and how it’s still growing.”

“I’ve got a great group of guys too, including the ones on the bench who are coming to practice and working hard every day to compete and push each other to be better,” said Roberts with a smile. “It’s been a fun year and we want to keep it going as long as we can.”