The Lady Knights hit 53 percent of their shots while the Spartans connected on just 33 percent. The end result was a 57-29 win for the home team.

And Knightdale won the game convincingly without much help from starting point guard Ajee Smith, who was sick and saw only three minutes of playing time.

“It gave us the opportunity to play another point guard, and that was a blessing in disguise for us,” Knightdale coach Anthony Byrd said. “We used Nicollette Neal and Tiana Johnson at the point, and they did good. It helped us see they could run the point.”

Knightdale came out strong, holding leads of 28-11 at the half and 42-16 after three quarters. The Spartans didn’t have a quarter scoring in the double digits until the fourth, but were still outscored 15-12 by the Knights.

“Sometimes the light bulb comes on, but comes on late,” Spartan coach Williams Sanders said. “We hit some shots that gave us some motivation, but had a slow game those first three quarters. We’re going to keep working at it.”

Sanders said he’s struggled to find five starters that mesh all season long. That was part of the problem Tuesday.

“We had some breakdowns,” Sanders said. “I changed my first five, and we were just out of sync and couldn’t get much going.”

The Knights (3-6, 1-1 Greater Neuse River 4A) shot only six free throws in the game and made half of the attempts, but hit four of their 11 attempts from 3-point range.

Smithfield Selma (3-4, 0-2) also had six attempts from the charity line. They made four of those, and hit five of 11 shots from behind the arc.

But the game was won inside the three-point line, where the Knights went 21-36 and the Spartans went 5-19.

Thirteen of the 14 Knightdale players on the roster played in the game and 11 of the 13 scored. Byrd continues to focus on building depth.

“One of the things we wanted to do was get some of the other girls in and see what they could do,” Byrd said. “Playing against East Wake and Southeast we wouldn’t have had the luxury to do that. Some of the girls showed flashes of some of the things we can build on.”

Byrd added it was the first time this season the Knights shot the ball well.

“We have people that can shoot the ball, we just haven’t been making the shots,” he said. “That was good to see.”

Smithfield-Selma was led by Dayday Turrentine with 10 points, followed by Breanna Chappell with 8, Diamond Blackston with 7, and Kaprechia Douglas and Sabrina Shephard with 2 points each

Knightdale was led by Lovely Locklear with 15 points, followed by Nicollette Neal with 8, Deanna Quarterly and Amber Wright with 6 points each, Brittany Westmoreland, Persia Brown, Tenneale Jackson and Khadedra Taylor with 4 points each, and Kristen Maiden, Tiana Johnson and Taylor Quash with 2 points each.