Good news and red flags littered the West Memphis Blue Devils' regular-season opener on Thursday night at Lehr Arena.

First, the good.

West Memphis' boys overcame a 38-31 deficit with 7:18 to play in the fourth quarter and rallied for a 47-41 victory over Little Rock Mills.

The red flags?

The Blue Devils cannot continue this season feeding the low post, where 6-foot-7 star Chris Moore resides, at the terribly low rate they have this week.

Moore, who is about to make his college choice public on Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at the Academies of West Memphis Performing Arts Center, had just two shot attempts in the second half, leading West Memphis head coach Marcus Brown to underscore that aspect of the victory.

"We didn't feed the post well at all," said Brown. "Only two shots for Chris in the second half...that can't happen again. We'll get better at that."

Moore, who scored 10 points in the Blue Devils' win over Bartlett in a preseason game on Tuesday night, once again scored just 10 points, which is 8 below his season average as a junior. But the broad-shouldered forward snatched 13 rebounds and blocked 4 shots.

Still, the Blue Devils notched a quality win over a Mills team that last year went 28-5 and advanced to the Class 4A state semifinals.

It looked like Mills' night when the Comets finally seized the lead after three quarters of back-and-forth with the Blue Devils.

West Memphis, which will play at home against Little Rock Parkview on Tuesday night, led 11-10 after one quarter and trailed 21-20 at halftime. Mills took a 36-31 lead after three quarters by denying the ball to Moore, who had zero shot attempts in the stanza.

"(Mills) went small-ball on us and it forced us to do things we didn't like," said Brown.

Mills' Jakari Livingston hit a twisting shot in the lane to open the fourth-quarter scoring, giving the visitors a 38-31 lead with 7:18 to play in the game.

That's when Moore got his only two field-goal attempts in the second half as he wriggled free for a layup with 7:09 left that triggered a 13-2 West Memphis run that also included a dunk by Moore with 6:26 to play.

But the star of the fourth quarter was unheralded hero Akyrahn Hazley, who scored 6 of his team-high 12 points in the final eight minutes.

"By Mills going small on us that left Akyrahn free to do some damage," said Brown.

Hazley scored six straight points for the Blue Devils, including a stickback with 3:05 to play that gave the hosts the lead for good at 41-40.

The Blue Devil defense, which Brown lauded after the game, denied the Comets any field goals for the final 3:39 of the contest.

"I'm really pleased with our man-to-man defense," said Brown. "Just a couple times on our rotation, that we were supposed to be sliding over, and that's about the only critique I have. Overall, it was just a very good defensive effort."

Another fourth-quarter hero was senior guard Kylan Sykes, whose three-pointer with 2:20 to play pushed the Blue Devil lead to 44-40. He then swished two free throws with 25 seconds to play that clinched the game, giving West Memphis a 47-40 lead.

Sykes ended the game with 11 points while junior point guard Jordan Mitchell had 5 points and Immanuel Hoard scored 5.

Livingston keyed the Mills effort with 12 points while Javian Guy-King scored 5.

The Blue Devils shot 17 of 36 from the field for the game, but were a dismal 3-for-11 from three-point range and an uneven 10 of 20 from the foul line.