The Brownwood Lions’ search for their first District 6-4A victory continues following Wednesday night’s 48-36 loss to the Stephenville Yellow Jackets in the league home opener for the maroon and white.
The loss was the second in district play for the Lions (10-18, 0-2), and fourth straight overall as Brownwood has averaged just 37 points in its two league contests thus far.
“We struggled from the line, we struggled around the basket and we struggled from beyond the arc,” said Lions head coach Will Parker. “I told the guys to win this game it was going to come down to defense and not turning the ball over. Neither team has been a great offensive powerhouse the couple of weeks, so were focusing on defense and not turning the ball over, but I think the guys will bounce back from this.”
Both teams finished with 22 turnovers and while the Lions sank 5 of their 6 free throw attempts in the opening period, they missed 12 of the next 13 and finished with an 11 of 27 performance at the line. Stephenville (14-12, 1-0), meanwhile, knocked down 10 of 18 shots from the charity stripe.
The Lions trailed just 12-11 after one quarter, but the deficit grew to 29-20 at halftime and 40-25 through three periods, and peaked at 46-28 with 4:07 remaining.
“We’re playing guys in different positions and trying to find out who our rotation guys are on the back,” Parker said. “We’ve got to find some sort of consistency there. We want to have guys out there that can score but then you want have the right guys out there defensively and right now and it’s tough to find that mix. We have to get back to the drawing board and figure it out.”
Ross Stasner led the Lions with 11 points followed by Ike Hall with eight, Hayden Noe with six, Casey Friebel with five, Carson Noe with three, Noah Pyle with two and Hayden Proffitt with one point.
For Stephenville (14-12, 1-0), Dillinger Thiebaud led the way with 14 points and Luke Wilson chipped in 11.
The Lions are back in action at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday as they welcome Glen Rose.
