Hanging On: Eagles fend off P.K. Yonge (SLIDESHOW, VIDEO)

FORT WALTON BEACH – The Niceville boys’ basketball team faced wave after wave of P.K. Yonge players in Tuesday night’s Indian Shootout at Choctawhatchee.

The Eagles (8-2) jumped out to a 22-point halftime lead and held on in the second half to pull out an 81-73 win over the Blue Waves.

View a slideshow from the game »

Shane Horton scored 18 of his 22 points in the first half to help the Eagles to their big first-half lead.

“I wanted to come out and play a little bit more aggressive than I had the past few games,” Horton said.

Slowly but surely, P.K. Yonge (3-4) started battling back in the second half. The Blue Wave outscored Niceville 27-16 in the third quarter to cut the Eagles’ lead to 68-57 to start the fourth quarter.

P.K. Yonge coach Jeff Myers was rotating players at seemingly every point in the game, often times subbing in five players at a time. The strategy proved effective down the stretch, as his team looked fresh for much of the second half.

“We got a little mentally tired and we need to work on that and we need to get better on keeping our heads in it the whole game,” Horton said, “but I think we could get better at that over the course of the season.”

Niceville turnovers and timely shooting from P.K. Yonge helped the Blue Wave cut the Eagles’ lead to four with less than four minutes remaining after Angel Perez hit a clutch 3-pointer.

But that was as close as P.K. Yonge would get as Niceville closed the game on a 9-5 run.

Mckinley Stephens scored 16 points for Niceville and Nicholas Haynes added 13 for the Eagles.

Niceville coach Jerome Strutchen got exactly what he wanted out of the game.

“Making sure we got everybody a lot of playing time,” Strutchen said of his top priority, “because we have to develop the bench and the only way to do that is to get them in the game and let them develop some success.”

Follow Pat Flynn on Twitter: @PatFnwfdn