STEPHENVILLE – Down by just three points at halftime, the Brownwood Lions allowed as many points in the third quarter as they did the entire first half and could not recover, falling to Stephenville, 62-35, Friday night in the District 6-4A basketball opener for both teams.

The Lions (13-11, 0-1), who suffered a fifth straight defeat, trailed 12-9 after one period and 23-20 at the break, but faced a 46-29 hole heading into the final period that continued to grow.

“We came out for 16 minutes and competed really well,” said Lions head coach Will Parker. “We talked about the margin of victory at the beginning of the season and the missing layups and unforced turnovers, and then the easy second-chance points for them, we have to do those little things better. If we do those little things better the game is closer and doesn’t get away from us. But hats off to Stephenville for taking advantage of all of our mistakes and we seemed to not take advantage of theirs.”

Brownwood received 16 points from Ross Strasner, 10 from Durham Brown, five points from Casey Friebel, Noah Pyle with two, and one point apiece from Bennett Windham and Weston Wolf.

Stephenville (18-5, 1-0) was led by 17 points from Austin Hardin, 14 points from Dillinger Thiebaud, and 13 points from Ryan Gafford.

The Lions will attempt to halt their skid and notch their first district victory when they host Graham (11-10, 1-0) at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday.