In front of a hostile Osceola crowd, the Blytheville Chickasaws opened the season with a 71-62 victory over the rival Seminoles. The Seminoles fed off of the home crowd as they led 20-14 at the end of the first quarter. However, a strong push in the second quarter by the Chickasaws offense turned the tide in the Chickasaws favor as they led 32-26 heading into the half. Midway through the third quarter, the Chickasaws newest edition, Michael Caruthers, took advantage of his former team’s lackluster inbound defense and found a wide-open Tony Newmy, Jr. behind the three-point line to give the Chicks a 46-39 lead. The ‘Noles answered quickly to cut the Chickasaws’ lead to five. A few plays later, however, Caruthers’ brother, Seminoles guard Makai Caruthers, went up for a layup and was called for a charge. Caruthers, however, was slow to get up and was eventually helped off the court and never returned. The Osceola bench was already short-staffed with many players still playing for the Seminoles football team in the 3A state playoffs. The Chicks clung to a 53-49 lead heading into the final quarter of play. Newmy helped down the stretch as he sent Seminoles shot after shot out of bounds, while also turning many fast breaks into points. Chickasaws senior guard Treay Jamison put the finishing touches on the game by hitting one of two from the line with 13 seconds left in the game to give the Chickasaws a 71-62 victory. Michael Caruthers’ first game against his former team wasn’t his best game with only three points. “It was just a hostile environment, it was hard coming back home but I had to do it,” said Caruthers. “It wasn’t the best night I had but I’m ready to look past tonight and go on forward with the season.” Chickasaws head coach McKenzie Pierce added, “Obviously, he wanted to win first and foremost and we did that for him. He didn’t light up the scoreboard but he did a lot of good things. He didn’t turn the ball over, he played solid defense, he kind of got in foul trouble, too, but I thought in the first half he was really big on the glass for us. I don’t know how many rebounds but he did a really good job of finishing possessions for us…it’d been really easy for him to go out and do whatever he could to get 20, but he just played team ball.” Junior Winston Peace led the Chickasaws with 26 points. Newmy chipped in 21 points, as well. “I had gutty individual performances from Tony [Newmy] and Winston [Peace],” Pierce explained. Pierce said Newmy stepped up as a senior leader against the ‘Noles. “I just thought [Newmy] did what a senior is supposed to do. The team was struggling a little bit and he said get behind me and lets go. In the past, a year ago, I don’t know if he’d done that and he showed up tonight…He had a really good game, and showed a lot of poise and leadership,” Pierce added. Pierce said a win is a win. “On the good side, we got the win and that’s what is important,” Pierce said. “I think good teams on bad nights find ways to win. And that’s exactly what we did tonight.” The Chickasaws’ defense didn’t live up to Pierce’s expectations but he explained that the defense will be better next time out. “Defense was terrible. I really thought coming into the game, defensively, we were a lot better than what we were,” Pierce explained. “Some of that just had to go with the flow of the game, officiating and different pieces. This summer we were really, really good in half-court defense and we’ve got a few guys that have moved in like Mike [Caruthers] and Jaurous [Haynes] and obviously some guys coming in from football that got to get in the flow of what we do defensively. Not that they did a bad job but just we’ve got to have five guys have got to work as one. I just thought we did a poor job defensively…I expect us to be a lot better next time out.” The Chickasaws will host another Mississippi County opponent, the Rivercrest Colts, on Tuesday. Tipoff is set for 6 p.m. at Chickasaw Gym.