Correspondent photo / Lowell Spencer Springfield’s Jameka Brungard, right, battles with Warren JFK’s Addy Odille for position during Friday’s holiday tournament game at South Range High School.

BEAVER TOWNSHIP — Win-loss records can indicate how well a team plays in a particular season, but they can also be deceiving. That is especially true when a team is playing highly competitive opponents.

In a clash between two equally competitive teams, the Warren JFK Eagles overcame an early deficit and then hung on despite a ferocious Springfield Tiger comeback attempt to squeeze out a 53-46 victory at the South Range Holiday Hoops Showcase Friday night.

The victory improves the Eagles to 9-1 on the season and gives them a little revenge for a heartbreaking loss in the district finals to the Tigers last season. The loss dropped the Tigers to 5-5 on the year, but that record is distorted when you take into consideration that the Tiger’s opposition is 37-7 combined.

“Essentially, this is our Super Bowl,” Eagles head coach Marc Morgan said. “This is who we lost to in the district final last year, so it was a very important game for us. I wanted them to see in the past year the difference in the strides that we have made. This is a big win for us.”

“An undefeated Rootstown team, a Crestview team that has some D-I kids on it, losing at the buzzer to an undefeated Columbiana team, and losing to Poland. But we are 5-0 in the league. That is where we want to be,” Tigers head coach John Matisi said. “These non-conference games are preparations (for tournament).”

It was the Tigers that seized control of the contest in the opening minutes as they built an 11-4 lead by the 2:16 mark of the first quarter when senior center Jameka Brungard scored a basket and converted the and-one. But the Eagles started to settle into the game as the period closed and went on an 8-2 run to make it a 13-12 contest in favor of the Tigers at the end of the quarter.

“Against a team like that, you have to come out and get ahead,” Matisi said. “We were able to come out and execute our defensive game plan. We were able to hold down their two star players, but then their other kids stepped up and made some shots. That got them back in the game.”

“I figured they were going to play the defense that they played,” Morgan said. “The mental state when the kids get denied the ball, because they’re accustomed to it, they are used to running free and loose, and when things don’t fall correctly, they get a little frazzled. We had to adjust.”

When junior guard Gianna Pompelia of the Eagles scored a bucket to open the second quarter, the Eagles grabbed their first lead in the contest at 14-13. The teams traded baskets until the Eagles went on a 12-2 run in the final four minutes of the period. They would carry a nine-point, 30-21 advantage into the halftime locker rooms.

“I thought we did a thousand times better against their press,” Matisi explained an area the Tigers have struggled. “If you’re playing games that the opponent is not competitive, you can’t fix things before the tournament. I thought we fought as well as we have all year.”

The Eagles continued to pull away from the Tigers in the second half as they built a commanding game-high 15-point 41-26 advantage late in the third quarter. They held a 13-point advantage at the close of the period 41-28.

But the Tigers wouldn’t go away quietly as they went on a 10-3 run to start the final quarter to close the deficit down to a six-point contest at the 5:05 mark following a bucket by Brungard. Pompelia once again powered the Eagles back out to a nine-point lead before the Tigers closed the game with a couple of buckets to reach the seven-point final margin.

“We sometimes think that people are just going to shut it down,” Morgan said. “We are a full-court team and when we play a half-court game, we are going to make some mistakes.”

“We fought, and that is what we have tried to get out of them all year,” Matisi said. “To be competitive with a good mindset. I feel like it is a lot more metal for us rather than physical. You love to win, but we will take the improvement we showed tonight.”

The Tigers and Eagles will return to action today, the second day of the South Range Holiday Tournament. The Tigers will face Walsh Jesuit on Saturday at 4 p.m. while the Eagles will tangle with Massillon Perry in the following contest at 5:30 p.m.