The Mexico boys hadn’t had a test like Tuesday in a month.

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The Bulldogs also haven’t been as deep in foul trouble for a while as they defended Warrenton’s trio of ball handlers, but Mexico still came out on top 67-62 to avoid its first loss since a month ago against Rolla. Before the third-quarter buzzer, Mexico trailed prior to a DJ Long last-second 3-pointer and then the Bulldogs took a 59-51 lead in the fourth quarter.

Head coach Darren Pappas said Warrenton’s trio of Joe Goldsmith, Troy Anderson and Deadrick Forrest were at the top of Mexico’s priority list and still gave the Bulldog defense troubles. Goldsmith scored a game-high 29 points with six 3-pointers, Anderson followed with 19 points and three 3-pointers and Forrest added 11 points. Those three combined to score all but three Warrior points and combined for only 11 points in the fourth quarter.

"They quit hitting shots, honestly," Pappas said. "We held them to 11 points total in the fourth quarter, and that was just mixing it up and putting a little more pressure on them in the full court. You try to get up and put pressure on them as much as possible and disrupt their rhythm offensively, and they handled the pressure in the half court."

Mexico (16-2) had their own tandem scoring the lion’s share of the points as Jaydon Eldridge led with 24 points, six rebounds and four steals, and Long had 23 points and five assists. Eldridge did most of his damage in the first half with 17 points while Long was effective down the stretch with 14 points in the second half, including some game-sealing free throws that was part of Mexico’s 71 percent free-throw shooting.

Pappas said PJ Perkins and Kaden Benne are usually right there with those two but ran into foul trouble that limited their time on the court and disrupted their rhythm. Perkins and Benne each had six points, but Perkins picked up his third foul in the first half and Benne reached four fouls in the second half to put Mexico in as deep of foul trouble Pappas could remember for a long time. To cover for them, Pappas said Charlie Fisher, Aidan Knipfel and Holden Aulbur did a good job stepping into early significant minutes while Donye Nunnelly had an effect inside with five rebounds.

“We missed a lot of bunny shots at the rim and had some good looks, but we just got to get better at it,” Pappas said. “Part of it is we had guys in foul trouble. Jaydon and DJ obviously stepped up big time for us and led us, but having that third and fourth guy in double figures is what I really want.”

Mexico surged ahead 9-0 early with three 3-pointers before Warrenton (10-7) fought back to within 23-18 at the end of the first quarter and then to a 38-36 lead at halftime. The Bulldogs played catchup for most of the third quarter until Eldridge and Long made vital plays to give their team momentum. Long nailed a 3-pointer at the buzzer for a Mexico 53-51 lead after three quarter, but before that, Eldridge picked up a rebound before launching a long pass to Perkins in stride for an emphatic dunk to put some life in the bench and the crowd.

“I just saw the ball in front and picked it up and threw it,” Eldridge said. “I knew he was going to dunk it. We do that in practice all the time so I have confidence (in that play).”

Almost three minutes into the fourth quarter, Mexico changed the complexion of the game by surging to a 59-51 lead after scoring some transition buckets. Warrenton called timeout, and Eldridge said the Bulldogs were feeling much better than earlier.

"It was really helpful actually," Eldridge said about taking that early fourth-quarter lead. "We finally found out we were getting ready to lose so we got up and pressured them and got in transition to score easy buckets."

Pappas said Warrenton wasn’t an easy defensive assignment despite his team knowing the scouting report going in. Goldsmith, Anderson and Forrest were naturally the focus of that report, but each of them presented problems.

Anderson was hot from the perimeter in the first half and handled the ball along with Forrest to crash Mexico’s defense. Goldsmith’s muscular frame barreled into the paint at times but was also a dangerous sharpshooter at the top of the key.

“They’ve got some really good players, and they work extremely hard,” Pappas said. “The scouting report was trying to run them off the 3-point line as much as possible. We were extending them out so far, but they were cutting off of us. When you’re extended out that far, the backside help isn’t as good as it could be because you’re worried about other guys that can shoot it.”

“(Anderson) came out and lit us up pretty much,” Eldridge said. “We tried to face guard him, but he was too quick offensively. (Goldsmith) hurt us bad.”

Pappas said it was hard to deploy zone defense early because of Warrenton’s shooting, but the Warriors answered by shooting at a high clip against man-to-man. He said the Bulldogs need to simply improve on the defensive end but were able to settle down in the fourth quarter after gaining a cushion they hadn’t had since the first quarter.

“When you’re not scoring the basketball like we wanted to, you can’t get and put pressure on them that will hopefully generate some offense from our defense,” Pappas said. “It was a good test.”

Mexico hosts district foe Macon (2-12) at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday.