SMRYNA, GA -- There was a point in the third quarter when Tyrone Johnson's stamp at Whitefield Academy was placed on his Wolf Pack team. When the former state championship winning coach unleashed his full court press on a very talented St. Francis team, things shifted and the packed gym saw what they used to see at Whitefield - a full court press.

The end-to-end defense frustrated St. Francis enough to open the game up to double digits in the fourth quarter as Whitefield took home an important 65-53 win on Tuesday night.

The press took two of St. Francis's players out of the game with fouls. Sophomore guard Kobi Simmons fouled out with 3:06 to play in the third quarter and junior Kaiser Gates fouled out with 4:13 to go.

From there, Whitefield never looked back.

"It was the difference maker in the game," Johnson said. "And I thought we responded well in the final four minutes of the game. We were just swapping baskets any other time in the game and I just can't stand that."

Johnson called a timeout halfway through the back-and-forth third quarter and called his team out and put the pressure on them to close out strong in front a strong home crowd. Senior point guard Berto Dryden said the quick pep talk worked.

"He gave us a talk about how the players need to reflect the coaches. He told us that he has been putting in the work coming into this game and we had to dig deep down inside and find that in ourselves," Dryden said.

Whitefield outscored St. Francis 23 to 9 in the final quarter. Senior Eric Lockett scored 17 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out five assists in the win. Junior Courtney Alexander scored 21 point, grabbed seven rebounds, handed out three assists and collected three steals in the win. Sophomore wing Brendan Myles added a dozen.

St. Francis was paced by McKinley Brown's 12 points while Malik Beasley, Kaiser Gates and Josh Coleman each scored nine. Kobi Simmons was held to two points in limited action.

The win is a propelling one for Whitefield, a storied program that under-achieved last year.

"I felt like this game let people know that we are back," Lockett said.

Whitefield, a team that sat at the No. 13 Power Poll spot at the start of the week, will certainly make a jump with a win over the No. 4 overall team in Georgia. But Johnson  cautioned about any early buzz for his team.

"We have a lot of work to do. I just saw too much AAU mentality out there." Johnson said.

Whitefield will sleep on the win on Tuesday night but get right back to work on Wednesday. A Friday night road game at North Cobb Christian awaits. The game is a pairing of two Power Poll teams.

St. Francis players will have their hands full once again on Saturday as the program will play Miller Grove at 8 p.m. at GAC for the Blue Collar Basketball Showcase.