MOULTRIE — Playing a team it expected to be able to defeat handily, the Colquitt County eighth-grade basketball team did not perform well in the first half of its game against Hahira Middle School on the road on Wednesday.

But the Packers picked up the pace in the second half and cruised to a 46-29 victory.

The victory completed a sweep of Hahira. The eighth-grade Lady Packers raised their record to 2-1 with a 23-18 victory in Wednesday’s first game.

“We played better in the second half,” said Colquitt County boys coach Craig Pitts, whose team raised its record to 3-0.

“And we’ve got to play better (Thursday).”

Colquitt will meet Lowndes today as part of a doubleheader that begins with the girls game at 4:30 p.m. at the Willie J. Williams Middle School gymnasium. The games will be the fourth in a week for the Colquitt County eighth-grade teams, which also played Coffee last Thursday and Valdosta on Saturday morning.

Colquitt’s boys were led by Cole Pitts, who scored 17 points. Pitts is averaging 13 points a game in the early going.

Cornelius James added 10, Quan Daniels had six, Kyle Tolbert had three and Tevin King, Tre DeBruce, Tyler Brown, Xavier Ward and Draoone Hampton each had two points.

Wednesday’s victory was the second in a row for the eighth-grade girls team, which opened the season with a 24-22 loss to Coffee in a game in which it scored just one fourth-quarter point.

The Colquitt County girls were led in scoring by Bria Wallace, who had 13 points. In her team’s three games, Wallace has been in double-figure three times, has scored 41 points and is averaging 13.7 points a game.

Wallace got help from Brittany Taylor, who put in six points, and guard Sarah Strong, who scored four points.

After the busy first week, the eighth-graders will play just once next week, a trip to Tifton for a meeting with Tift County.

The Colquitt County seventh-grade teams will play their third games of the young season today when they travel to Valdosta to face Lowndes Middle School. The seventh-graders will play their home-openers beginning at 4:30 p.m. Monday against Tift County at the Charlie A. Gray Middle School gymnasium.