On a night when the Person Rocket girls appeared to have a good shot at breaking a 10-game losing streak, the ride only got rougher in a 59-39 setback to the Southern Durham Spartans in a Piedmont Athletic Conference game Friday night at Rocket Gymnasium.

The Spartans had tasted victory just once in PAC-6 play themselves entering Friday’s contest. That lone triumph was a 28-point rout of the Rockets back on Jan. 8, and the visitors clearly appeared to be the better team on this night as well.

The Rockets, now 0-12 in the conference and 3-18 overall, have not experienced a win since whipping the Gretna Hawks by 36 points in the Halifax Holiday Tournament back in late December.

Since then, the conference portion of the schedule has not been kind to Person, which has come within single-digits of an opponent just once in its last 10 outings.

As many other teams have done against the Rockets this season, the Spartans came out and employed a full-court press from the opening tap. The pressure forced the Rockets to commit too many giveaways, and Southern took advantage by pulling out to an 18-7 first-quarter lead and increasing it to 14 (34-20) at the half.

When it was over, Rocket head coach Melinda Goodson could only repeat what she has talked about all season: the team needs to take better care of the ball.

“We didn’t handle the pressure well again tonight. They wanted to speed the game up and we needed to slow things down,” she said. “We had too many lapses and we didn’t keep our composure against the press.”

Person did have minor spurts where it played well. Guard Brittany Burton had perhaps her best game of the season, connecting for 15 points and hauling down seven rebounds. Freshman Akira Sampson added 10 points and Nickgail Fuller, who has become more of a force offensively in recent games, finished with 10 as well.

To make things worse, the home team was a bit shorthanded also.

Ebonee Taylor, normally one of Person’s top scorers, was held without a point and did not see much action in the second half, while forward Destiny Poteat was in uniform but had to sit out the game due to illness.

Meanwhile, Southern had nine players make the scoring column, led by Jasmine Parker’s 14 points, Thomonica Coleman’s 10, and Kierra Hinton’s nine.

Southern spent the second half slowly adding to its lead and entered period four up by a comfortable 48-30 margin, as Person never really made a serious run.

The Rockets actually won the battle of the boards, 30-27. Danielle Lunsford had five rebounds and two points. Arneeque Smith had two points and Tori Whitfield a free throw to account for all the Rocket scoring.

From here, Person has just two more opportunities to avoid a winless regular season in the conference. Next Tuesday’s home tilt against Jordan appears to be its best hope. But the Rockets will need to step up their game quite a few notches.

The regular season comes to a close at Hillside next Friday. The league-leading Hornets drubbed Person by 56 points three weeks ago.

When asked about her team’s inexperience being an issue, Goodson didn’t want to use that as an excuse for her teams’ struggles.

“It’s the end of the season. I look at the sophomore players as juniors, and the juniors as seniors,” she explained. “We’ve almost been through an entire season now, so there are no more excuses. This is the PAC-6 and it’s an unforgiving league. If we come into these games and keep turning the ball over and making mistakes, there’s a slim chance for success.”