Steers lose at home to Azle

The Steers opened with signs of promise quickly dashed by poor shooting. The Steers were held to a single basket in the first half of a 59-24 home loss to Azle Friday night.

For just over a minute, the Steers started strong. An opening 3-pointer by Gavin Dean was answered with a 3-pointer by Kolby Spurlin. Then the Steers’ offense went silent for the rest of the half. It was not for a lack of shots, the Steers had 37 shots in the game. The team shot 5-25 from under the basket.

The Hornets scored 22 straight points between the 6:57 mark in the first quarter and the 6:44 mark in the second quarter. That span included an 0-2 trip to the free-throw line by the Steers. The offense was moving the ball with little issue to start the game and shots were opening up. The turnovers started to creep in as ill-advised passes were stolen. The Steers had 34 turnovers, with 20 via steals.

“Even the second quarter we got wide-open shots,” Steers coach Kris Hise said. “I mean we just couldn’t shoot. At the end of the day when  you’ve got seven feet in front of you and nobody on you at all, you just got to step up and make shots. We didn’t. When we were in the last game against Kerens we made shots all day and we won. So nothing changed and it wasn’t what they do or what they did to us. We were wide open, just gotta shots.”

For the rest of the story, see the Jan. 12 edition of The Graham Leader.