For the better part of a half on Friday night, Eastern View’s boys basketball team looked like it was in charge against Caroline.

The Cyclones held a 28-19 lead just minutes into the second quarter. The host Cavaliers appeared lost offensively against their swarming zone defense, and it looked as if the game was about to be blown wide open by the visitors from Culpeper County.

Then, Kaylen Taylor took over.

Caroline’s diminutive junior guard exploded for a game-high 32 points, and the Cavaliers overtook the Cyclones by halftime and never looked back on their way to an 82-74 Battlefield District victory.

“[Taylor] hurt us by helping [Caroline] speed the game up,” Eastern View coach Patrick Thornhill said. “We were more in control and playing at our tempo early, and then he took us off our game by speeding things up. After that, we were just never able to catch up.”

The 5-foot-7 Taylor, who scored 29 points in Caroline’s 70-68 loss to James Monroe on Thursday night, didn’t even score in the first quarter against Eastern View. Then, suddenly, it was as though he flipped on a switch and lit the Cyclones up in the process.

Taylor’s barrage started with an 8-0 run that cut Eastern View’s lead from nine points down to one, 28-27. He made a difficult shot on a drive down the middle of the lane, and followed that up by drilling a pair of long 3-pointers on Caroline’s next two possessions.

Taylor added two tough layups after that, one of which led to a three-point play, to punctuate a 24-9 scoring run for the Cavaliers. He finished with 15 points during that stretch, and Caroline led 43-37 at halftime.

“We came out sluggish in the first quarter,” Taylor said. “After that, I told myself I had to take over and help pick things up.”

Thanks to Taylor, Mykai Smith (17 points) and Koby Metz (15), Caroline (8-4 overall, 3-2 district) never trailed in the second half, building as much as a 14-point advantage at one point in the fourth quarter.

Taylor scored 13 points in the final period to help keep Eastern View at bay, making 11 of 11 free throw attempts along the way.

“Kaylen is a heck of a point guard,” Caroline coach Antoine Johnson said. “He really gave us a big spark tonight. We needed this.”

Johnson also pointed to the performances of others, such as Metz, 6-foot-5 forward Tre Terrell (five points, eight rebounds, two blocked shots) and Jaylen Taylor, Kaylen’s older brother (eight points, eight rebounds, seven assists), as keys to the Cavaliers’ victory. In Thursday’s loss to James Monroe, only four players scored points for Caroline.

“We need some of these other guys to step up,” Johnson said. “We’re halfway through the season now, so I’m expecting things from these guys, especially the ones that have come up from the J.V. team like Koby and Tre.”

Junior guard Alex Spangler finished with a team-high 23 points for Eastern View, which saw its record drop to 6-7 overall and 3-2 in the district with the defeat. Fellow junior guard Zion Clark added 19 points, and senior center Dylan Galenski finished with 11 points and seven rebounds.

“We just didn’t execute tonight, period,” Thornhill said. “We had our opportunities around the basket, but we probably missed more layups than we made. It’s hard to win on the road, and we made it harder on ourselves tonight.”

Friday’s result, combined with Chancellor’s 79-72 overtime victory against Courtland and James Monroe’s 62-54 win over King George, shook up the Battlefield pecking order. James Monroe is now all alone in first place, while Courtland, Caroline, Eastern View and Chancellor all find themselves locked in a second-place tie.

Caroline will host Spotsylvania on Tuesday in its next game. Eastern View is at home against King George the same night.