VALLEY — With experience comes expectation, and the Bulldogs of LaFayette High School are currently living up to its preseason hype by getting off to a 4-0 start this season after a 66-56 win over Valley on Thursday night.

“Our kids played hard,” LaFayette boys head basketball coach Obadiah Threadgill said. “We really valued the ball, I think we finished the game with 9 turnovers. Anytime we get single-digit turnovers, there’s no way we should lose if we take care of the ball.”

Setting the pace offensively for LaFayette was an all-around team effort lead by junior Markevious Moore and senior JaQuavian Boston-Gaines.

LaFayette’s roster has seven players listed over six feet tall, and the Bulldogs used that size advantage to outmuscle the young Rams of Valley. Junior Matavais Burton led all LaFayette scorers with 18 points on the night, he got his scoring on the floor in a variety of ways, driving and scoring on both sides of the basket.

Valley did keep the game competitive in the first three quarters, however, as sophomore guard Kintavious Dozier was lights out from beyond the arc shortly before halftime and freshman guard K.D. Hutchinson contributed a fiery 11 points, four assists and a rebound in the effort, as well. The Rams continued to encourage each other throughout the course of the game, and didn’t play timid against the traditional crosstown basketball powerhouse. The Rams played full-court man-to-man defense against LaFayette just like the team has done all season.

Threadgill said that he scheduled tough opponents for LaFayette so the Bulldogs ould be better equipped in the postseason.

“We know in this area that we have Valley, Handley and Lanett,” Threadgill said. “We have some really good athletic schools and good teams around us. We purposefully made our schedule difficult, and the reason we did that because we really wanted to know what we were made of at the end of the postseason. We really wanted to have seen every possible scenario, and we wanted to solve any rubrics cube thrown at us.”

LaFayette returns to action tonight at home against Handley High School.