CORINTH - The only thing Rob Browning said his Amory boys basketball team excelled at on Tuesday night was fouling.

His Panthers committed more than 20 fouls, as two of his players fouled out, in a 73-55 loss at Corinth.

"We did well at fouling," said the Amory coach, whose team dropped to 8-6 overall and 2-2 within MHSAA's Division 1-4A. "At this point, that is all I can say we did well at."

The Panthers took a 20-18 lead with 7:06 left in the second quarter, but that was their only advantage of the contest. The Warriors built a nine-point lead before going into halftime with a 39-32 advantage.

"We still had a lead, but had we done a better job of blocking out, it would have been a more comfortable lead," Warriors coach Keith Greene said about his team's rebounding.

The Warriors went up 10, at 50-40, thanks to Jazz Garner's seven points in the period, including an old-fashioned 3-point play.

The Panthers, however, pulled to within five (50-45) at the buzzer when Justin Lackey (team-high 13 points) nailed a 3.

The Warriors put the game away for good in the final eight minutes with a 23-10 surge.

Deione Weeks led Corinth with 18. Jose Contreras added 13 and Eric Richardson had 11 for the Warriors (15-2, 5-1).

Despite fouling out, Terez Beeks had 11 for the Panthers.

"We didn't execute; we took some stupid shots," Browning said. "We got a lot of growing up to do."

john.wilbert@journalinc.com