Warriors fall to Cougars

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Joe Marchilena photo Wilton-Lyndeborough's Adam Edmunds drives past Derryfield's Chris Rizos for a layup during Tuesday's game. The Warriors lost to the Cougars 52-31.

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Joe Marchilena photo Derryfield's Andrew Palacios gets a piece of a shot by Wilton-Lyndeborough's Tony Graziano.

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Joe Marchilena photo Wilton-Lyndeborough's Adam Edmunds drives past Derryfield's Chris Rizos for a layup during Tuesday's game. The Warriors lost to the Cougars 52-31.

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WILTON – The Wilton-Lyndeborough High School boys basketball team played good enough defense Tuesday night against Derryfield.

Unfortunately, the offense isn’t quite there yet for the Warriors.

W-L scored a combined nine points in the second and fourth quarter and fell to the Cougars 52-31 in a Division IV game in Wilton. Adam Edmunds scored nine of his team-high 14 points in the second half while Tony Graziano had eight points for the Warriors (0-2).

Tyler Zorn had a game-high 17 points, including five 3-pointers, to lead Derryfield (1-0). Three of Zorn’s 3s came in the second quarter for the Cougars only points of the frame. While that defensive effort was close to what Warriors first-year coach Ryan Stull wanted to see, the four points W-L scored was less than desirable.

“Our offense is in a flux,” said Stull, who has had to deal with a few changes in personnel in the last few days due to academics. “We had changed our offense two days ago because of players that we lost. The plays we ran, they learned (Monday). You can’t really expect too much. Our defense was good enough. It wasn’t great. You’re not going to win a lot of games when you score 31 points.”

The Warriors trailed by four early in the second quarter, but Zorn’s 3s gave the Cougars an 11-point lead at halftime. Another 3 by Zorn stretched that lead to 14 points in the third, but 5-0 run by W-L got it within nine and forced Derryfield to take a timeout. The Cougars went on an 8-0 run after the timeout, essentially putting the game away.

“We did it a little bit (better) in the third quarter, but they called a timeout at the perfect time,” Stull said. “We graduated all of our scoring. No one has filled that void. Traditionally, we’ve been a fairly successful program and I think maybe they think they’re going to have success when they walk out on the floor. They work hard, they do, but we have to focus better on offensive execution. I take responsibility for that and so far what we’re doing isn’t working. It’s a process.”

The Warriors are back on the floor Friday at 7 p.m. when they host Newmarket (2-0).