The Rockmart Middle School basketball teams hit a rough spot in the road last week as both the boys and the girls suffered two tough losses at home.

The Lady Jackets (2-3) fell to Armuchee 25-15 last Thursday while the RMS boys (3-2) lost 41-28. Saturday saw the girls take a 46-23 loss at the hands of Darlington while the visiting Tigers defeated the Jackets 45-21.

In last Thursday’s games, Rockmart Middle hung close with the Lady Indians, holding onto a one-point lead until the third period when Armuchee went ahead 10-7.

But a 13-2 run in the fourth gave the visitors a 12-point lead that was too much for the Lady Jackets to overcome. Darby Maulding led Rockmart with seven points in the game

Facing Darlington two days later, the Lady Jackets fell victim to an 11-2 run right out of the gate, forcing them to retaliate quickly in the second period where they went on an 11-1 run of their own and took a 17-12 lead at halftime.

Rockmart fell on hard times in the second half though as Darlington outscored them 34-6 in the final 12 minutes of the game to rout the home team.

“The girls played their transitions and played man-to-man real well. We’ve got to work on finishing the game and getting stronger mentally,” Lady Jacket coach Brooke Worley said.

“In the first two quarters we hustled up and down the court but we threw it away after halftime.”

Maulding led Rockmart again with nine points, all of which came in the first half as she became one of a handful of Lady Jackets who ran into foul trouble during the last two periods.

A back-and-forth battle between Rockmart and Armuchee’s boys was broken up by an 11-2 run from the Indians in the final minutes of last Thursday’s game to hand the Jackets their first loss of the season.

RMS took a 16-15 lead with 4:10 left in the first half but a 10-0 run by Armuchee put the visitors back on top.

Drake Benefield, who was injured late in the game, had eight points to lead Rockmart’s scoring. Fredrick Liggons had seven while Jaylin Smith had six.

For years we’ve basically done well during the regular season and not ran into any adversity until the tournament,” said Rockmart coach Tim Puckett. “That’s a testament to the kids but we need things like this to happen early on so we know how to deal with it.

“They had us out-sized and we had way too many turnovers but it’s good to have that learning experience.”

Darlington came out strong from the start and took advantage of Rockmart’s mistakes to maintain a double-digit lead for the majority of the game.

Smith led the Jackets in Saturday’s game with eight points.

RMS hosts Pepperell this Thursday at 4 p.m. and will face Cedartown on the road on Saturday at 10 a.m.