A good butt-kicking is all the West Memphis Blue Devils needed, according to their head coach Marcus Brown.

Back in action after taking two losses in an invitational tournament in Duncanville, Texas last week, the Blue Devils responded with some solid play here Monday night, defeating Little Rock Central 62-53.

When asked what good came from the tournament in Texas, Brown responded, "Well, we got our butts beat and we needed to see that happen to us," he said bluntly.

The Blue Devils (4-2) were blasted 72-48 by Westlake High School out of Austin, Texas and then absorbed a 74-65 loss to Waxahachie, Texas.

On Monday night, the Blue Devils had no trouble with Central.

They rushed out to a 17-3 lead in the first quarter and then relied on their defense to post their first true road victory of the season.

Auburn signee Chris Moore, as usual, led the charge with 18 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 3 blocks.

But it was the three-point shooting from two senior guards that punctuated the victory.

Kylan Sykes and Immanuel Hoard each canned three triples to pump in 17 and 13 points respectively.

"The three-point shooting tonight was one thing that I was especially pleased with," said Brown, whose team plays again tonight at Memphis Central. "That's what we needed. That's what we ask of our guys, whatever it is we needed. And tonight it was three-point shooting. We want to be a consistent shooting team this year. Everybody's gonna sink in on Chris and we just need that consistency from the outside."

By the 3:12 mark of the first quarter, West Memphis sank three triples, with two coming from Sykes and the other from Hoard. Two minutes later it opened up the inside as Moore muscled his way inside for a layup and then seconds later a thunderous dunk that made it 17-3.

The visitors led 19-6 after one quarter and then utilized a successful stint in a 2-3 zone defense that haunted Central (2-1) through the third quarter.

"We played that zone because (Central) wasn't shooting the ball well, but we did not play well on the defensive end in the fourth quarter," Brown added.

West Memphis led 33-17 at halftime and then maintained that margin through the third quarter before some shoddy officiating aided the Central cause, cutting the Blue Devil lead under double digits.

The Blue Devils also got solid performances from junior guard Jordan Mitchell and senior Akyrahn Hazley, who scored 7 and 6 points respectively.

Little Rock Central was led in scoring by Corey Camper Jr, whose father was a high school and college teammate of Blue Devil assistant coach Curtis Washington Sr. at Brinkley High School and Harding University.

The two combined to lead Brinkley to a 26-1 season in 1985-86 with the only loss coming in the state championship game.