Marques Oliver scored a game-high 23 points (on 7-of-10 shooting) on Friday and also grabbed 10 rebounds as the Catamounts defended their No. 1 ranking in the state while handing the Jaguars their first loss of the year, 57-48.

With his team down two early in the third quarter by a score of 28-26, Oliver went on a 11-point tear, highlighted by a posterizing dunk on Athens' Quentin Edmundson that ignited the Panther Creek faithful who made the trip to Raleigh.

By the time the third quarter was done, Oliver had willed his team to a six-point lead.

On the other side, the Jags' Davis couldn't get into a rhythm until it was too late. After averaging 26.4 points per game entering the contest, Davis was limited to just six points going into the third quarter. He finished with 14.

"We worked on it a lot in practice yesterday — how we were going to get him off the ball more so he wouldn't score as much," Oliver said.

Panther Creek coach L.J. Hepp's team employed a "diamond and one" defense, with a guard pestering Davis and denying him the ball. It allowed the Catamounts' post players to grab more boards without allowing Davis, who still collected 14 rebounds, to execute his dangerous post moves.

"We've got three guys who have played football at Panther Creek, and those were the three guys we rotated through Josh Davis," Hepp said. "We wanted those guys to be physical, have a football mentality with [Davis]."

Tyler Gattis, Mike Hood and Isaiah Johnson all spent time guarding the much larger Davis, holding him to a season-low in points.

"We felt that if we went with a big in front of him, we would lose a little bit of rebounding because that big, for the most part, is going to be behind Josh to begin with," Hepp said. "We felt we could throw those three guys at him all game long and not wear out a Marques or an Earnest, because that takes a lot of energy."

When Athens couldn't get the ball to Davis, it struggled to get much else going. Edmundson finished with 18 points, but it came on just 7-of-21 shooting.

"We knew going into the ball game Josh wasn't going to have a large scoring night. But we needed to have more balance in our scoring and I don't think we shot the ball extremely well," Athens coach Robert Clemons said. "They're a good team, there's no doubt about it. They're big and they're long and you have to shoot the ball extremely well if you're going to have a chance with them."

Both teams were perhaps too jittery to function in the first quarter, as Panther Creek led 9-8 despite Athens not getting on the scoreboard until the 2:32 mark.

Ross and Edmundson each had nine points at the half, which ended with Athens holding a 25-24 lead thanks to a last-second jumper by Davis.

Oliver's monster third quarter had his team up 39-33, but he didn't stop there. On the first scoring play of the fourth quarter, Oliver caught an alley-oop off an out of bounds play.

He also collected a steal for a breakaway jam, his third dunk of the night, to put the Catamounts a healthy 11-point lead with four minutes to play.

"[Oliver] had a big night here last year. Sometimes it's confidence like that carries over," Hepp said. "Marques took advantage of some mismatches, and he was able to get out and break a little bit and have some big plays."

The senior forward's big night couldn't have come at a better time personally, as his grandmother had just made the trip from South Carolina to watch him play. It was the first time she had ever seen him or his twin brother Brandon play.

"My grandma was here tonight, so I figured I'd go hard for her," Oliver said.

For Athens, it will be important to learn from their recent history and try not to repeat it. After suffering the first loss of the season late last year, the Jaguars unraveled. But with few gimmes in the Tri-Eight conference, Clemmons knows his team will have no time to lick their wounds.

"This ball game right here is not going to determine who wins the conference. Right now they're in the driver's seat because they have no conference losses, but we only have one," Clemons said. "We have to be able to bounce back and move on. This is just one game, we've got to play them again."

To view J. Mike Blake's "Sights & Sounds" from the game, just click here.