Opposing teams can pick their poison when attempting to defend the Wilmington boys basketball team.

Teams can choose to focus on Rocco Fagan’s perimeter shooting or they can attempt to shutdown Jordan Smith inside.

Few teams have the personnel to do both.

Union’s attempts at either failed last night as Fagan and Smith each erupted for season-highs and the Greyhounds picked up a 72-63 victory over visiting Union in a interdistrict battle.

“They’re really picking their points to score,” Wilmington coach Mike Jeckavitch said. “We’ll be very hard to guard if we continue to have guys score in lumps.”

Smith made 15-of-18 free throws and finished with 29 points, while Fagan canned five 3-pointers to finish with 25.

“Rocco is really shooting the ball well right now and that’s making Jordan’s job really easy as an undersized big man,” Jeckavitch said. “What’s nice is Rocco had three 3-pointers in the first quarter alone. They started to guard him a little tighter and he started driving to the basket.

“When you get to the line 18 times like Jordan did, you’re doing a good job of ball faking. We stress to the kids that we’re going to win or lose from the foul line. This is the second time we made it to the line at least 22 times or more in a game. That really helps your offense.”

The Greyhounds (3-1) raced out to a 47-30 lead at the half before allowing the Scotties (0-5) back into the game in the second half.

“It honestly was a tale of two halves,” Union coach Dave Smialowski said. “Their transition was hurting us in the first half. We weren’t getting back and they were getting easy points.”

The Scotties cut the deficit to five and had multiple opportunities to chip away even more, but couldn’t score.

“We were close,” Smialowski said. “We just gotta keep working and get to the point where we put together a full 32 minutes if we want to have success. We’re just green. This group has to learn how to win and once we do, we’ll be fine.”

Jeckavitch said the bigger line-up the Scotties used caused problems for his team.

“We struggled in the second half,” he said. “They went with a bigger line-up and we struggled with that. We had a little foul trouble after trying to defend (Benjamin) Young, so we had to switch up defenses a little. It was just little things here and there.

“The boys wanted to put on a show, so our defense struggled a little bit. The defense still needs some work. Union and us are more high tempo and we end up with more possessions on the offensive end. We knew we weren’t going to hold them in check offensively, but we needed it to be in the 50s.”

Young led Union with 28 points, while Jullian Johnson added 20.

“They had trouble staying on him,” Smialowski said of Young. “Ben is our go-to guy and he’s gonna have to do that for us to be successful. Jullian did a good job of attacking the basket. He’s coming into his own. He had 10 points the other night and 20 tonight. He’s starting to understand what we expect of him.”

Smialowski said playing five straight games on the road — the Scotties play their sixth consecutive road game on Tuesday when they travel to West Shamokin — has had its affects on his players.

“We’ve had a rough road,” he said. “We haven’t had any home cooking. They’re going to feel good to finally have that first home game. Playing on the road night after night makes you weary.”