T-L Photo/KIM NORTH UNION LOCAL sophomore D.J. Butts had his shot blocked by Martins Ferry senior Jaizen Miles during Friday’s game inside the Tolbert Gymnasium. The Purple Riders posted a 50-40 win over the Jets, who fell to 2-1.

MARTINS FERRY — Derek Edwards knows teams are going to focus their defenses around Jaizen Miles, so somebody else is going to have to step up for Martins Ferry’s sixth-year head coach. Friday night in their season-opener, that player was Peyton Hores.

The Purple Riders’ 6-foot senior powered his way to 20 points and 12 rebounds — both game-highs — in leading the hosts to a 50-40 win over Union Local before a boisterous turnout high atop the Purple City inside Tolbert Gymnasium.

“Effort,” Edwards stressed of Hores’ double-double performance. “You put one word in the paper about him and it is effort. That’s who he is and that’s his role. He is accepting that role. He doesn’t have to do it all, he just needs to do what he is great at and that is effort in rebounding and hustling. He really stepped up for us.

“We know teams are going to gear up to stop Jaizen and that is going to open up things for other players. We need to take advantage of that and I think we did tonight.”

Hores netted 11 of his points in the second half, including an offensive rebound putback that gave the Purple Riders a 46-37 lead and sparked a game-ending 6-3 run.

For Union Local head coach Zach Delman, his Jets (2-1) connected on a mere 8-of-31 shots from beyond the three-point line and only tallied 16 points after the halftime break.

“The bottom line is I didn’t think we gave our best effort tonight. I guess I shouldn’t say best effort … we just didn’t play well,” he admitted. “We looked a little lost at times, which shouldn’t happen with two games under our belts. From an early season standpoint, we should’ve been sharper than we were. I think the way we played tonight stems from the way we practiced yesterday. We (the coaches) were upset with the way that practice went and the kids knew it. We keep telling them that you play like you practice. You can’t expect to play well and some kids say they are ‘gamers,’ but that’s not the way we teach things here.”

Edwards thought there were two aspects of the game that his team needed to do well in in order for it to come out on top, and it did.

“Our keys to the game were rebounding and turnovers. Union Local showed they have some kids that can really jump, so winning that (rebounding) battle — which is always huge — was big for us,” Edwards said. “When a team like Union Local shoots the ball from the outside as many times as they do, long rebounds will kill you. I thought we did a good job of getting a body on their rebounders and securing the ball. We also wanted to win the turnover battle, and for the most part, I thought we took care of the ball really well, especially down the stretch against a really athletic team

“We expected Union Local to come in here and play their hardest, that’s the way they play,” Edwards noted.

The Purple Riders led 33-20 off the glass as Miles added nine boards to go along with eight points. He missed some action with a leg cramp. They also turned the ball over two less times at 12-10.

Another player that Edwards cited was Alex Reese. The 6-5 freshman scored 13 points, knocking down a trio of treys, grabbed five rebounds and blocked a like number of shots in his first varsity game.

“Alex is still really young, but he showed a lot of glimpses tonight,” Edwards said. “He might have only played two full quarters in this game because of foul trouble. We need to keep him out of foul trouble moving forward, we like what we saw.”

Union Local was led by Beezer Porter with 17 points, which included four long-distance baskets. Elijah Butterworth hit three triples for nine markers. Carter Blake and D.J. Butts evenly split 14 rebounds.