Nansemond River High School’s boys’ basketball team learned it could bleed on Saturday against Christchurch School, and Tuesday was the Warriors’ first on-court chance to treat the wound.

Denbigh High School came to town as conference play begins in earnest, and the Warriors recovered from their first loss of the year with an 80-59 rout of the Patriots.

Warriors senior Devon Oakley said he was out to make a statement as he scored 13 of his 24 points in the first quarter to push Nansemond River to an early 19-11 lead.

“I had a lot of anger coming into tonight’s game, because I feel like we could have beaten Christchurch,” Oakley said.

NR head coach Ed Young was pleased with what he saw from his team.

“They really answered the question, ‘What are we going to do when we’re facing adversity?’” he said.

The Warriors led 39-21 at halftime and made it 58-32 by the end of the third quarter.

Young said his team’s full court press was effective, forcing 13 Denbigh turnovers in the first half and 22 for the game.

Oakley had eight rebounds, seven assists, two steals and a block to go along with his game-high 24 points off 63-percent shooting from the field.

“With me, it was just capitalizing off their mistakes,” Oakley said.

After the loss to Christchurch, Young said, his “challenge to the kids was, ‘Do something about it.’ You can’t get that game back, but you assure that Denbigh doesn’t best us…. and (Oakley) answered the challenge, as (did) most of our guys.”

Junior Scott Spencer scored 17 points on 50-percent field goal shooting and had five boards.

Senior Daniel Wallace’s production had been down lately, so Young opted to give senior Adrian Coleman the start on Tuesday. Coleman finished with 12 points, five boards and a career-high three steals.

“Coleman did a good job in that start,” Young said. “His hustle was very big for us.”

Coleman said he felt good about his performance and found it fairly easy to score near the rim.

Warriors senior Jalen Warren dished out six assists.

Nansemond River (14-1, 3-0) hosts Heritage High School (11-3, 3-0) on Friday in what will be a showdown between the only two undefeated teams in Ironclad Conference play.