Leyton Girls Basketball Opens With Two Wins

Leyton's Warrior Basketball teams opened their seasons Friday night in Dalton, and the Lady Warriors had no trouble getting past the visiting Kimball Lady Longhorns 48-to-25, while the boys fell to the Longhorns 72-to-56.

The Lady Warriors started first and pulled ahead of the Lady Longhorns early, using their aggressive pressure defense to shut down the Kimball offense. At the end of the first period, the Leyton girls held an 11-to-6 lead, but it could have been much larger as the Lady Warriors were having problems hitting their shots. As the second quarter progressed, the pattern stayed the same. The Kimball girls were having difficulty getting off shots due to the pressure defense of Leyton, while Leyton was not scoring as much as they should have, missing easy shots. At times the Leyton offense was impatient and took long shots unnecessarily, and at other times they were too patient, passing up easy chances and holding on to the ball for too long. Both teams were inconsistent at the free throw line. The half ended with Kimball junior Rachel Berger hitting a field goal to make the score 31-to-10 at the half. The Leyton girls added 17 more points in the second half to take the 48-to-25 win. The Leyton girls looked good defensively, if a bit too aggressive, but struggled to make shots. The Kimball girls had trouble dealing with pressure defense, and although they had a height advantage, the Leyton girls were more effective on the boards.

In the boys game, Kimball shot out to a 5-to-0 lead until Leyton battled back with strong defense and the teams traded leads multiple times through the first half. The Leyton lead was cut to three points when Kimball's Kyler Lusche hit a buzzer-beating three pointer to end the half. In the second half, it was Kimball's defense that set the tone, shutting down the Leyton offense while the Longhorn shooters hit their marks. This continued for the rest of the game, and the Longhorns pulled away with a 72-to-56 victory, as seemingly a completely different game was played in the second half. Lusche led Kimball in the contest with 22 points and Kimball senior Brandon Paxton followed with 18 points. Leyton senior Jonathan Kruse led all scorers with 25 points in the loss.

Next, the Leyton teams traveled to Morrill on Saturday, and the girls teams battled through a tight first half, with Leyton opening a 22-to-19 lead at the halftime break. Leyton came out on fire in third period, racking up 26 points in the frame. Morrill did their best to keep pace, but were only able to notch 18 points of their own in the third quarter. Going into the final frame with a 48-to-37 lead, the Lady Warriors matched Morrill in scoring, keeping their lead and ending the game with a 62-to-51 victory.

In the boys game, the Warriors struggled against the Lions' defense to open the game, only scoring two points in the first quarter. Morrill did not fare much better, however, only scoring nine points in the first quarter. The strong defense continued for Morrill in the second frame, but their shooting improved, and the Lions took a 24-to-7 lead into the intermission. Leyton tried to battle back in the third period, putting up 11 points, but could not stop the Lions' scoring and fell further behind. Leyton tried to rally in the fourth quarter, but they were too far behind and fell by a final score of 42-to-25. The Leyton teams host the Peetz Bulldogs in Dalton on Thursday night.