The Dublin Lions faced adversaries from the area and out of state during the Brownwood Holiday Classic Dec. 27-29.
The Lions started the tournament by facing New York’s Maine Endwell, in which the out-of-state visitors won 90- 51.
“We played a very physical and aggressive team,” said head Lions basketball coach Wes Grisham. “We had some good moments in the second half but it was a little too late to overcome the second place team of the tournament.”
Alex Teten led scoring for Dublin with 15 points followed by Kyson Gilman with 11 and Kaden Gaitan with 9.
Aidan Hernandez scored 7, Francisco Garcia 4, Aiden Salyer 3 and Dane Lewis 2.
Dublin followed this with a 71-50 loss to Brownwood.
Grisham reported the team stayed with Brownwood until the 4th quarter but were having to make up points as foul calls led to successful free throws for Brownwood.
Dublin was down by 5 at halftime.
“We felt the second half would swing our way,” said Grisham. “We had some good steals and forced them to turn it over in the 3rd quarter but we couldn’t score ourselves.”
Gaitan led scoring with 13 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals.
Teten- 9 pts, 7 rebounds, 7 assists, 4 steals Hernandez- 8 pts, 3 rebounds, 2 charges Gilman- 8 pts, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks Salyer- 5 pts, 3 rebounds, 1 steal Ivie- 3 pts Garcia- 2 pts, 3 rebounds, 2 steals The Lions then faced Llano in a 59-47 loss.
“We started off in a hole being down 0-9 and rallied together to come back before halftime being down by 2,” said Grisham. “We took the lead in the 3rd quarter but it was short lived when Llano made their shots and we came up short in the 4th quarter. We had some really good offense and seemed like the team came together and trusted each other.”
Teten led Dublin scoring with 17 points followed by Salyer with 9 and Hernandez and Gaitan who each had 8. Gilman scored 3 and Garcia 2.