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‘‘I just broke that tape and threw it out,” Nelson said. ‘‘I took the blame for last time. I got thrown out of the Blake game. I can laugh about it now because it’s over. I never put too much emphasis on one game, but I did remind them that Rockville came into our house and beat us. So we wanted to come here and put up a good effort.”

The Cavaliers (8-7, 5-4 in the 3A⁄2A⁄1A) did just that. In their loss to Rockville they’d deviated from their normally aggressive offensive attack. But, led by senior guard Jeremy Herring, who averages 26 points per game and put on a clinic Friday with 31 points and 10 rebounds, Kennedy was the aggressor Friday.

And, the Cavaliers have tightened up their defense significantly in recent weeks. Kennedy allowed an average of 63 points per game in its first six games of the season and, in the last seven, has given up only 51 points. That stingy defense has helped catalyze its offense.

‘‘Defense is what we emphasize more than anything else,” Nelson said. ‘‘We’re proud we held them to just 36 points. Offensively, today, I think we attacked well through their zone. We showed patience, attacked the gaps and were unselfish.”

Led by inside-outside threat Herring, who zigzagged his way up the floor with seeming ease, junior Clarence Claiborne (14 points) and senior Kurt Larry (six points), the Cavaliers were able to spread the floor efficiently, leaving the Rams (7-6, 6-4) scrambling to keep their footing.

Rockville, which has displayed impressive maturity this season and remained the more composed at the end of the teams’ previous meeting, was left dumbfounded Friday. The Rams, enjoying their best season in more than five years, have relied heavily on their improved cohesiveness and willingness to work as a team. But Friday they fell back into old habits of trying to do everything individually. And that just wasn’t going to work against Kennedy, clearly on top of its game.

And, to put them in more of a hole, they played almost half the game without leading scorer Sean Canahuate, who averages 15 points per game but was held to just nine. He sat out the second quarter and part of the third after racking up three fouls in the first quarter. And he ultimately fouled out early in the fourth.

‘‘I was a little worried about this game,” said senior Kevin McTighe, who averages 11 points per game but mustered just two against Kennedy. ‘‘We stole it from them last time. They’re a really good team, I knew they’d come out real hard. This time, we had no answer. They kept pushing and we had no answer. I have to give them all the credit. They completely took us out of our game.”

Inconsistency has cost Kennedy some games this season. But the Cavaliers kept their intensity up Friday. They took an early 11-6 lead after a tightly-contested first quarter, and never let up. They led 28-15 at halftime and had pulled ahead 50-26 by the end of the third quarter.

Friday’s win was Kennedy’s sixth in eight games, just the kind of results it’s looking for as it enters the final stretch of the season and playoff time.

‘‘We’ve been real up and down,” Nelson said. ‘‘We won our first two games, lost four in a row, won five in a row, lost the next three. A win like [Friday’s] gives the guys confidence. They can feel good about themselves. If we can execute efficiently, we’re a real good team.”