Priceville’s Hayden Prentice (12), Chandler Livingston (10) and Danville’s Slater Robinson fight for a loose ball at Danville Saturday night. | Clif Knight

Danville High School’s varsity boys and girls basketball teams jumped out to early leads and went on to claim wins over Priceville’s Bulldogs and Lady Bulldogs at home Saturday night.

Playing on the road earlier in the season, both Danville teams lost to Priceville in hard-fought battles.

It was a different story this time around, however, at the Hawks emerged with a 42-36 decision and the Lady Hawks came out on top, 52-34.

The Hawks led 11-10 after one quarter and 23-18 at halftime but had to fight off a Priceville rally in the sec0nd half to get the win.

Priceville’s Luke Mason canned a 3-point shot to give his team a 24-23 lead with 4:10 left in the third period, but Danville answered with a trey from Justin Morgan to regain the lead. The Bulldogs also came to within a point of tying the score in the fourth quarter on a 3-pointer by Marc McLendon. However, the Hawks finished with an 8-3 run to win by six.

“Priceville is a good team and they’re well coached,” said Hawks head coach Scott Ellis.

”I thought our guys stepped up and did what they had to do to win. It’s always good to play one of your rivals and come out on top.”

Morgan led the Hawks in scoring with 13 points. Patrick Doherty had nine points and Alan Cordova added eight.

Hayden Prentice scored nine points for Priceville while Kaleb Barker, Mason and McLendon each added six.

In the girls game, the Lady Hawks raced out to a 25-10 first quarter lead and never looked back. They were ahead 37-16 at halftime and 50-24 after three quarters.

“When they beat us at their place earlier, they rallied from behind to get the win. This time we wanted to get ahead early and maintain the tempo,” said Lady Hawks head Coach Paul Wilson. “Fortunately, we had some three’s drop in the first half and that helped a lot. Also, our pressure created problems for them throughout the game.

“It was good to get the win and play a lot of players. We had eight girls score in the game,” he added.

Sydni Shelton, Charlee Anderson and Gracie George each had nine points for Danville. Jesse Oliver scored seven and Tara Tuck had six.

Emilee Cunningham paced the Lady Bulldogs with 13 points, Jada Beverly had nine points and Alex Moore added 6.