ORANGEFIELD — After jumping on West Orange-Stark early, the Little Cypress-Mauriceville Bears held off the Mustangs 55-43 to capture the fourth-place playoff berth out of District 24-4A Friday night at Bobcat Gym.

The Bears (11-20) jumped out of the gate with a 11-1 run against the Mustangs (9-18) and never looked back.

LC-M increased a 21-14 halftime lead into a whopping 47-23 early in the fourth quarter and then held off a late Mustang surge.

LC-M outscored the Mustangs 19-9 in the third quarter to go up 40-23 and then scored the first seven points of the fourth quarter.

The Bears will move on to face District 23-4A champion Huffman in the Class 4A bidistrict round Tuesday at 8 p.m. at East Chambers High School in Winnie.It will be the second game of a double-header. Bridge City (17-13), the third-place team out of 24-4A, will face 23-4A runnerup Cleveland at 6 p.m.

Sophomore post Katon Brown put together a huge double-double for the Bears, scoring 16 points while yanking down 12 rebounds.

Keegan Sonnier filtered in 11 points for the Bears. Andrew Daspit chimed in with 10 points and seven rebounds. Ayson Simmons had eight points and five boards while Cameron Parker added five points.

Junior guard KJ Miller carried a sluggish Mustang offense most of the night. He finished with a game-high 17 points and scored 12 of the Mustangs’ 14 first-half points.

Corey Skinner had seven points for WO-S while Bretlin Wiley had six and Jarron Morris five.

Wiley, Thomas Wallace and Morris Joseph each had four rebounds for the Mustangs.

The Bears finished with a 31-24 rebounding edge.

LC-M had 17 turnovers while WO-S had just 11.

The Bears went 11-of-22 from the free-throw line while the Mustangs made 9-of-16.