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The opening round of the North Stanly Christmas Classic men’s basketball tournament Friday pitted three Stanly teams against A.L. Brown and four area charter schools.

After College Prep Leadership Academy (CPLA) won the opening game against Mountain Island Charter, 79-66, South Stanly took on the A.L. Brown Wonders out of Kannapolis. The Bulls jumped out to a lead in the second quarter and did not trail from there, securing a 58-36 win.

Gavyn Miller led the Bulls (5-3) with 17 points, 13 of which came in a second-half push for South to build the team’s lead throughout the half.

Jaxon Valler added 11 points, nine of which came in the first half for South.

Carter Hendley was the top scorer for Kannapolis (2-7) with nine points.

South trailed 5-1 early in the game but outscored the Wonders 15-7 over the final six minutes of the first quarter and led after one, 16-12.

The Bulls then built a double-digit lead outscoring Kannapolis 13-7 in the second to lead at halftime, 29-19.

In the second half, South kept the Wonders from scoring double-digits in both quarters, allowing just 17 second-half points while scoring 29.

“Anytime Gavin gets going, it makes everybody better,” South head coach Sean Whitley said.

“He draws so much attention that it makes it easy for him to find the open guy. They stayed home with our shooters, and put a guy like Gavin on an island, we’ll take that matchup.”

South Stanly takes on CPLA Saturday at 5 p.m. in the semifinals of the winner’s bracket.

“Obviously, the later you play in a Christmas tournament, the better you are doing. Our goal was to play later tomorrow than we did today, and hopefully even later Monday,” Whitley said.