NEW BEDFORD — Kendal Franklin likes to get up the court fast and he was rewarded for his hustle Friday night.

The New Bedford High sophomore scored 15 of his team-high 19 points on the fast break as the Whalers capitalized on their pressure to beat Durfee 66-51 to improve to 2-0 in Big 3 Conference action.

“I’m always out there,” said Franklin, who had 15 points in the second half. “In practice we run sprints a lot so it’s easy getting up and down the court. You don’t get tired as much.”

“He knows how to get open,” said New Bedford head coach Matt Hill. “He knows how to take off when we get the ball. He’s good at that.

“His progress has been really good. He was a guy I wasn’t too sure how much I was going to get out of him and to see where he’s gotten to now and the progress he’s made and the efficiency he has scoring wise for us is amazing.”

After Durfee had closed New Bedford’s 27-19 halftime advantage to four points (27-23) in the opening minute of the third quarter, senior Kenny Franklin stole the ball and got it ahead to his younger brother, Kendal, who converted the 3-point play.

Each time Durfee would get close, the Whalers had an answer.

“Everytime we made a run, we would have back-to-back turnovers and New Bedford would capitalize,” said Durfee head coach Jameson Guimond. “Hats off to them. They did a nice job tonight.

“They were at 50-50 balls and they were tougher tonight. Hopefully when they come down to Durfee, we have a better performance.”

New Bedford used its swarming half-court defense and tenacious full-court pressure to force Durfee into 25 turnovers. Senior Dijaun Chumack had a team-high four steals while seniors Barron Hilton and Kenny Franklin and junior David Abolarinwa had three apiece.

“That was it,” said Guimond of the difference in the game. “We turned the ball over to anybody on our schedule so if we don’t get that cleaned up we’ll probably continue to have the same outcome we had tonight. I think a lot of it is New Bedford did some nice things and turned us over and I think a lot of them were self-inflicted turnovers that really hurt at bad times in the game.”

Even though the Hilltoppers got within six (46-40) with 6:11 remaining, the Whalers didn’t let the game get away from them.

“The game plan was to share the ball, get the steals, keep uptempo, play hard defense, box out and rebound,” Hill said. “All the things we preach every single day, they put on the floor tonight. I’m very proud of them.

“It was nice that my guys played the way they know how to play. This game was how we’re supposed to look and how we’re supposed to play.”