Photo by Kim North Martins Ferry’s Eli Smith (13) battles with Union Local’s Brody Kerns (20) and Dylan Verbeck (10) for a rebound during Tuesday night’s game inside ‘The Hangar’ on the Union Local schools campus in Morristown. Smith scored 15 points and grabbed eight rebounds to lead the Purple Riders to a 51-37 victory over the Jets.

MORRISTOWN — Tuesday night’s Buckeye 8 boys’ basketball matchup between Martins Ferry and homestanding Union Local had a little bit of everything you come to expect in a game, and then some.

The Purple Riders (5-3) forced 16 turnovers by the Jets (5-6) in the first half, but found themselves on the short end of a 20-18 count. The visitors made just 7 of 26 shots and were a chilly 3-for-14 from behind the bonus arc.

However, they reversed that latter trend in the second half to rally for a 51-37 victory inside ‘The Hangar’ on the Union Local schools campus.

“We persevered. When it gets tough, you don’t quit, you fight,” Martins Ferry head coach Derek Edwards said. “That’s why we have that on our shirts and all over our locker room. We need to stick together and grind through it. We knew it wasn’t going to be easy.”

After Martins Ferry scored the first five points of the game, Union Local used an 16-3 run to grab an 16-8 lead early in the second quarter. The Purple Riders scored the final five points of the half — keyed by a three from Anthony Booth — to pull to within two, 20-18 at the break.

“I thought we did a good job early of executing the game plan on the defensive end,” Union Local head coach Zach Delman said. “We were trying to limit some of the scorers, and we did. But on the offensive end we weren’t able to score at that end, mainly because of all the turnovers. “We were up by two at the half with 16 turnovers. That’s crazy!

“They did a good job of speeding us up and that’s the first time a team has been able to do that,” he continued.

A 14-2 run to start the third quarter — sparked by Maurice Barnett’s seven points — allowed the Purple Riders to build a 10-point, 32-22, advantage they never relinquished.

Barnett sat out the first quarter for discipline reasons and starting point guard Gavin Little was under the weather and didn’t dress.

“We had some bench guys really step up and do a good job,” Edwards said. “Maurice is a warrior and we expect things like that from him. All around I’m very pleased with how we dealt with adversity tonight.

“We had to kind of adjust … on the fly,” Edwards noted. “The players did a great job of that.”

A three from the left corner by Bam Porter pulled the Jets to within 39-37 with a little under five minutes left to play, but the Purple Riders were clutch at the foul line down the stretch — tickling the twine 8 times in as many tries.

For the game, Martins Ferry made 16 of 48 shots (33 percent) as it went 9-for-22 in the second 16 minutes. They also finished 12 of 13 from the charity stripe for the game.

“Shooting on the road you’re going to shoot a little more poorly,” Edwards added. “You have to find ways to win games. It doesn’t matter how you get it done. If you’re not shooting well, you need to play better defense, and that’s what we did. Our defense played well, giving up 20 points in the first half and 17 in the second.”

Eli Smith led three Purple Riders in twin digits with 15 points. Booth and Barnett evenly split two dozen. Porter paced the Jets with 14 points, two more than Brody Kerns.

Union Local did hold a 35-24 advantage off the glass as Kerns collared eight. Porter, Dylan Verbeck and Jacob Stroud all had seven each. Booth took game honors with nine, with Smith recording eight.

Union Local totalled 22 turnovers, double that of Martins Ferry.

Martins Ferry returns to Tolbert Gymnasium to host St. Clairsville in a makeup game on Thursday before welcoming Bellaire the next night. Union Local, meanwhile, treks to Cambridge on Friday.