The Seymour boys basketball team kicked off its season at Martinsville on Saturday.

While it appeared it would be a close affair at the start, the Artesians were able to string together strong scoring in the second and third quarters to defeat the Owls 60-31.

In the first quarter, the Artesians jumped to a 4-0 lead before Owls senior Ty Christensen scored the team’s first basket of the season at the 5:30 mark.

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Trailing 8-2 with 3:50 remaining in the first, Owls freshman Alan Perry netted back-to-back threes to tie the game at eight apiece.

The Owls didn’t score in the rest of the first and trailed 12-8 after eight minutes of play.

The Artesians outscored the Owls 25-10 in the second quarter. In the final 2½ minutes, the Artesians went on a 9-2 run to lead 37-18 at the intermission.

“I thought we just had too many bad spurts,” Owls coach Kyle Clough said. “That first quarter I thought we played really well defensively. To hold a team like that to 12 points was right on par with what I thought we needed to do. In the second quarter their secondary action, and their big guys made a bigger presence which made us pay more attention to them.”

With the momentum on their side, the Artesians came into the second half with the same offensive prowess. They scored 18 to the Owls 11 points in the quarter.

One of the bright spots for the Owls during the third quarter was that they forced the Artesians to commit seven fouls in the first five minutes of the second half.

“I told our guys at halftime that I didn’t think we were matching (the Artesians’) physicality and toughness,” Clough said. “They were the ones initiating on the defensive end pushing us off our screens. We challenged them a little bit and I think they did a good job with that.

Next, the Owls (0-1) will head to Brownstown Central on Friday.

“I thought, at times tonight, we played all right and other times a little scarce and spread out,” Clough said. “I think that there are some things we can build on. You need to give Martinsville a lot of credit — they were a team who won 15 games last year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t do at least that well again this season.”