VERSAILLES — Quin Richardson gave Scott County fans cause to sing Thursday.

The senior poured in 34 points to fuel the Cardinals' 86-74 victory over Paul Dunbar in the first round of the Woodford County Invitational.

A verse of The Mighty Quinn, anyone?

"We've had a lot of good point guards at Scott County," Coach Billy Hicks said, "and he's right there with the best of them."

Richardson, a tad under his listed height of 6 feet, shot 11-for-23 from the field, including 4-for-4 from three-point range. He also made all eight of his free-throw attempts, with five rebounds, five assists and two steals.

"I just kept shooting, really, and they just kept going in," said Richardson, who has made an oral commitment to Campbellsville University. "After a few times of that, Coach Hicks ran a few more plays to me and I just kept shooting.

"When we see someone that's getting hot, we give them the ball. Just like Trent (Gilbert) — Trent had 40 points the other night. So we did a good job of passing the ball around. A good team effort tonight."

The ninth-ranked Cardinals (7-1) will meet Woodford County, a 46-32 winner over Clark County, in a Friday winners' bracket game at 6 p.m.

No. 18 Dunbar (5-4) will face Clark County in the losers' bracket at 2 p.m.

Jalen Haddix backed up Richardson with 17 points. Tony Martini grabbed 10 of the Cards' 36 rebounds and scored four points.

What pleased Hicks about his team was defense. After a slow start, the Cardinals picked up the intensity.

"If we come out and don't play hard, we're just an average basketball team," Hicks said. "When we play hard, we're moving on defense and getting after it, we're a pretty good team."

Eric Trigg and E.J. Floreal led Dunbar with 16 points each. Mike Smith added 14 and William Gary scored 13. Floreal had seven of the Bulldogs' 31 rebounds.

Dunbar scored the first eight points of the game and led 14-9 through one quarter.

"We came out just standing around, gave them too many good open looks on jumpers," Hicks said. "And we knew coming in that Dunbar has really good jump-shooters. They got wide-open looks. Then we started guarding them better. And our offense feeds off our defense."

Four straight free throws by Richardson gave Scott County its first lead, 17-16.

Tied at 19, Scott County finished the half on a 21-7 run, 12 by Richardson.

Included were a pair of three-pointers. He did the rest with an uncanny ability to launch pull-up jumpers.

"We work hard on that in practice. ... It shows in the game," Richardson said.

The Cardinals led 60-31 late in the third quarter.

Dunbar erupted for a 39-point fourth quarter to make the final respectable.

"We look a little better than we are right now," Dunbar Coach Scott Chalk said. "I think (Scott County was) a little bit taken back — we look pretty athletic and we played well the first couple minutes or so, kind of got things going a little bit.

"But then we started missing some shots, making some bad decisions. Then I think they got a few runouts and they started feeling a little more comfortable. And then they settled down and played the way they can play, which is disciplined, executing."

DUNBAR (5-4) — Lewis 3, Trigg 16, Gary 13, Floreal 16, Smith 14, Black 6, McHugh 4, Davis 2. Totals 24-50 20-33 74.

SCOTT CO. (7-1) — Haddix 17, Martini 4, Tribble 4, Richardson 34, Gilbert 8, Page 4, Short 9, Kindred 3, Murray 1, Guyn 2. Totals 29-61 23-27 86.

Dunbar 14 12 9 39—74

Scott Co. 9 31 22 24—86

Three-point goals — D 6-10 (Lewis 1-2, Trigg 3-5, Gary 1-1, Floreal 1-1, Smith 0-1), SC 5-11 (Richardson 4-4, Gilbert 0-5, Page 0-1, Kindred 1-1).

Mark Maloney: (859) 231-3229. Twitter: @MarkMaloneyHL. Blog: markmaloney.bloginky.com