Nansemond River High School’s boys’ basketball team opened the 2012-‘13 season with a 69-53 win at Grassfield Tuesday.

The Warriors started off the game with a 8-0 run and kept the Grizzlies on the hunt the rest of the evening with some early solid defense and tremendous rebounding throughout the game.

The Warriors led 16-4 after the first quarter behind junior guard Devon Oakley, making his first varsity start with eight points. The Warriors went up 33-13 at the half by out-rebounding the athletic Grizzlies 25-9 and holding them to 5-of-25 shooting.

Oakley and junior point guard Khalil Carroll, making his first appearance in a Warriors uniform after two years at Lakeland, each had nine points to lead the Warriors. Carroll also had five assists and Oakley four steals.

Warrior Head Coach Ed Young challenged his young Warriors to hold Grassfield to fewer than 30 points for the game.

“I figured we needed some extra motivation for our second-half play as our overall play got sloppy near the end of the first half,” he said. “Plus our defense feeds into our early offense opportunities.”

The challenge fell flat, though, as the Warriors turned their first three touches into turnovers and gave the Grizzlies more field goals (six) in the third quarter than they did in first half (five). Grassfield also outscored the turnover-prone Warriors, 18-17.

Things got even worse for the Warriors in the fourth, as the Grizzlies put up 22 points to Nansemond River’s 19, and the Warriors turned the ball over 10 times for a record high under Young of 30 turnovers.

The final stats showed the Warriors with a 56-27 rebound edge, with Senior Kendric Washington leading the way with 12 boards to go along with four points and four blocked shots.

Senior Ed Drew had eight rebounds and 11 points, and sophomore Scott Spencer had a good varsity debut with 16 points and seven rebounds. Oakley got into late foul trouble, which limited his scoring to 11 points, along with five steals and four assists. Carroll had 12 points to go along with seven assists.

“To put four kids in double-digit scoring shows you we should be pretty good once we know what we are doing,” Young said.