For the Tribune

MEDORA

Medora coach Michael Leitzman said the sooner his Hornets’ boys basketball team figures out that it has to play consistent basketball for all four quarters, the better its chances are of getting into the win column.

“If you combine the scores of the second and fourth quarters, we lost by four points (24-20),” he said.

“If we could put four quarters together, we’re a tough team

to beat. We’ve only been putting two quarters

together lately.”

Orleans (4-1) used an 11-0 run in the first period to take an 18-7 lead, and scored the final 13 points of the third quarter to outscore the Hornets 18-7.

Those runs were too much for the Hornets to overcome, and Orleans went home with a 60-34 win.

This is the second game in a

row and third time this season

the Hornets have scored less than 40 points.

A pair of free throws by Kirk Stewart left the Hornets trailing 7-6 at the 5:44 mark of the first period before Orleans went up 18-6. Austin Fish hit a free throw late in the period to stop Orleans’ rally.

Kage Spence opened the

second-quarter scoring with a layup and followed with two free throws for an 18-11 score with 4:49 left in the half.

The Bulldogs went on a 14-6 run to take a 32-17 lead at the half. Kam Flynn hit a 3-pointer, followed by a layup at 5:12 of the third period to cut Orleans’ lead to 37-24, but that was as close as the Hornets could get.

Cale Hall hit a 3-pointer from the corner, and Murphy Wheeler followed with another basket, and the Bulldogs took a 50-24 lead.

Hall was a thorn in the Hornets’ side during the first three quarters when he scored 29 of his game-high 31 points. He finished with 5 2-pointers, 5 3-pointers, was 6-for-7 at the free-throw line and topped the Bulldogs in rebounds with 9.

“Hale is, by far, the best guard we’ll play all year,” Leitzman said. “A lot of times teams focus on him, but Orleans has other players capable of going

off. Wheeler and Chase Hall are capable of going off at any time.

The Hornets defense tried to maintain Hall throughout the game.

“So our focus was to contain their role players, and make it hard on Hall,” Leitzman said. “He got some easy looks at times, but for the most part we made him earn the points that he did get. He’s just a good ball player. I thought we did a great job locating him, communicating

and finding him, and their other shooters.”

Chase Booker was high scorer for Medora with 11 points and Stewart added 9.

“Offensively, we did a great job taking care of the basketball. We had 6 turnovers, which is a lot better than it has been lately,” Leitzman said.

“I thought we did a good job of screening and getting open looks, but we’ve

got to have more aggressiveness from other

players. I thought our role players relied too much on one or two players. We

need more production

from everybody.”

The Hornets (2-4) will play host to Shoals tonight.