DURHAM — The Person Rocket boys have permanently lost three starters from their roster since the New Year and one more was missing in their Piedmont Athletic Conference game Friday night at the Riverside High School gym.

In the case of junior center Mike Williams, the absence was only temporary as he was battling the flu. But the Rockets, who kept Friday’s contest close through three quarters, eventually felt the effects by getting outscored 26-14 in the final quarter of a 76-57 loss to the Pirates.

Similar to Tuesday’s three-point near miss against East Chapel Hill, Person went toe-to-toe with the Pirates up until the midway point of the third period.

That’s when the speedy Riverside attack began to break down the short-handed visitors.

“Their speed wore us out at the end,” said Rocket head coach Charles Dacus. “I thought we played with them into the third quarter. We played hard but we didn’t play as well as we did against East Chapel Hill. I don’t know if it was because this was our third game this week and we were a little fatigued.”

Three players finishing in double figures — Alex DeVaughn (14 points, 8-of-9 from the foul line), Monroe Faulkner (16, two treys), and Tony Winstead (11) — wasn’t enough for the Rockets, who were coming off a 21-point non-conference victory at Southern Alamance on Wednesday, and appeared to be feeling the effects of their third game in four nights — a rare occurrence on the schedule this season.

The loss dropped the last-place Rockets (9-10 overall) to 2-8 in the conference. The Pirates improved to 5-5 in PAC-6 play.

After establishing an early 19-15 lead in the second period, Person appeared on the brink of being blown out of the gym when Riverside went on a 15-2 tear to suddenly forge ahead 30-21.

The Rockets responded with an 11-3 surge of their own to end the half down by just one (33-32), and took a short-lived lead at 36-35 at the five-minute mark of the third before Riverside slowly started to take control by outscoring Person, 15-7, over the remainder of the quarter for a 50-43 advantage.

“I called a time out when we got down by six in the third to try to give the players a rest,” Dacus said. “It worked for a while. We climbed right back in the game and got within two, but we just didn’t have enough gas to keep it going.”

In a near carbon-copy of his performance the first time these teams met at Person back in December, Pirate guard Carlos Sanford earned his way to the foul line often, hitting on nine of 11 tries from the charity stripe (6-of-7 in the fourth period) and finishing with 24 points, which included three 3-pointers.

Sanford went a perfect 12-for-12 from the line in Riverside’s 66-58 win back on Dec. 18 at Rocket Gymnasium. On Friday, the Pirates made 36 trips to the free-throw line and connected on 23 of them. The Rockets went 15-for-23 from the stripe.

Along with Sanford, Phillip Williams had a productive night for Riverside, pouring in 19 points (12 in the second half) off the strength of eight field goals. Michael Mayer also came up big for the home team with 15 points.

For Person, DeVaughn had seven assists to go along with his 14 points, while Faulkner, Winstead and Ahmad Arthur (four points) had five rebounds each. Mark King collected eight points, and Clint Holt’s four points completed the scoring for the Rockets.

The Person boys host Northern Durham in a conference match-up on Tuesday at Rocket Gymnasium.

In Wednesday’s 70-49 non-conference rout of the Southern Alamance Patriots, the Rockets had 10 players make the scoring column.

Winstead netted 11 field goals for 22 points (his fourth 20-plus game of the season), DeVaughn contributed 14 with the help of two 3-pointers, and Faulkner 13 (three treys). Williams finished with eight points.

Sedrick Scott, Holt, Rod Fuller, Arthur, and Donte Cameron each collected two points, and Termain Scoggins added a free throw for the victors.

On the other side, Luke Vandall led the way with 13 points for the Patriots.