By Tim Mastro

SMYRNA — The players on the Smyrna High boys’ basketball team believe the reason they are undefeated is because of their defense.

That defense helped the Eagles turn an early deficit into a double-digit lead on Thursday night.

Smyrna held St. Mark’s to just one point in the second quarter on its way to a 46-27 victory in the second round of the DIAA state tournament. The Eagles trailed 8-5 at the end of the first quarter before a 15-1 run in the second.

Lish Gregory led the Eagles (16-0) with a game-high 15 points.

“Our defense is super-aggressive and we love to bring the energy,” Gregory said. “Once we turned up the energy on defense, we started dictating the game. Our defense makes our offense, we learned that early in the year and we’ve stuck to it.”

Smyrna, seeded sixth in this year’s tournament where every team was eligible due to the shortened season caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, will host No. 11 seed Caravel Academy on Saturday night in the third round at 6:30 p.m. Caravel (10-5) defeated 30th-seeded Delaware Military Academy 47-43 on Thursday night.

St. Mark’s, the tournaments 27th seed, finished its season at 8-6.

The Spartans’ slower style gave the Eagles some trouble to began Thursday’s contest. It wasn’t until Smyrna forced four turnovers on four consecutive possessions that the Eagles could build a lead.

“It took a half of a quarter or a full quarter for us to really see it,” said Smyrna coach Andrew Mears on playing a team like St. Mark’s. “It’s hard to prepare for unless you’re doing it all year. It took us a quarter and then I think we weathered the storm and figured it out.”

Elijah Credle started the second quarter by draining a game-tying three-pointer for the Eagles. Smyrna took the lead on a free throw by Gregory a few possessions later and would not relinquish it.

Devin DeMoe followed with a three-pointer of his own while Gregory added a tip-in to cap nine unanswered points by the Eagles to begin the second quarter.

St. Mark’s closed within 23-14 in the second half before a dunk by Olumuyiwa “Moo” Salako restored Smyrna’s advantage to double-digits. St. Mark’s never pulled within 10 points the rest of the way.

Credle finished with eight points for the Eagles while DeMoe scored seven and Salako chipped in six. Dom Shepherd paced St. Mark’s with eight points and Jabri White chipped in seven.