WOODLAWN - Raylon Lawson's game-high 19 points led four Woodlawn players who finished in double figures as the Bears got past the scrappy Rison Wildcats, 59-37, in the 8-2A District Tournament quarterfinals Tuesday night inside the Woodlawn Gym.
While the Bears ended up winning by 22, Woodlawn struggled to take total control of the game until going on a 15-5 run late in the fourth quarter.
Early on, it looked as though the Bears were about to repeat their performance four days earlier when they built a 18-2 first quarter lead in their season finale at Rison before eventually winning by 76-48.
Just like in the previous encounter, a couple of quick layups by Garrett Weatherford gave the Bears at 4-0 lead as Woodlawn came out looking as though it was hitting on all cylinders.
But the Bears suddenly went cold, and the Wildcats' trio of freshmen gave Rison the lead, 74, after a jumper by Spencer Towery, a layup by Kyson Walker and a three from Ethan Saeler.
That forced Woodlawn Coach Logan Adair to call a timeout with 1:50 left in the first quarter, and the Bears went on an 11-2 run to finish out the opening period to take a 15-9 lead into the second.
Woodlawn slowly pulled away from there as Jude Roberts' two free throws with 5:39 left in the first half gave the Bears their first double-digit lead of the game, 23-12.
Rison was never able to cut the lead to single digits the rest of the game, but the Wildcats flirted with it for nearly the entire game as Woodlawn struggled to get some point-blank shots to fall. The Bears led 3119 at the half and 40-26 at the end of the third quarter.
Woodlawn was still nursing an 11-point lead, 44-33, about midway through the fourth quarter before Brayden Kitchens started to clean up inside. The big senior scored seven of his 11 points over the last half of the final period.
James Mitchell did hit a 3pointer down the stretch for Rison to make it ...
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