CHARLESTON AIR FORCE BASE, S.C. -- Unable to withstand second-half shooting by LRS 1, the SFS basketball team dropped its Charleston AFB intramural basketball season opener, 47-21, Feb. 3 at the Fitness and Sports Center.

Both teams opened up the game looking more toward driving to the net rather than protecting it, proving that both teams were lacking in defense and LRS went into halftime leading SFS 20-16.

In a close battle throughout the first half, SFS's Adam Konstanzer led his team with 7 of the 16 points, while LRS 1's Lun Fox led his team with 5 of the 20 points scored going into the second half.

"I was surprised with how well we played in the first half," said Kerry Lehman, SFS coach. "We lost almost 80 percent of the team from last year ... we are working on re-building the team and communication."

LRS 1 returned with 50 percent of the players from last year and used the first game of the season as a learning experience.

"After the first half we discussed working on our communication, moving the ball, understanding where everyone was at on the floor and keeping our spacing so we did not bunch up," said Lun Fox, LRS 1 team captain. "It was the first game of the season, we got three or four new players this year so we used the first half to run the floor and see what we are capable of doing."

Once the second half began, LRS 1 looked like a new team by tightening up on defense and not letting SFS get into the zone. LRS 1 worked the ball around the court, distributed the ball to everyone on the team, put up points with consistency and out-scored SFS 27-5.

Both teams made two three-pointers throughout the game, but LRS 1 won the free throw battle, 11-of-13 for LRS and 1-of-6 for SFS.

Julius Johnson led LRS 1 with 11 points throughout the game, closely followed by his teammate Dominick Ward who finished the game with 10 points. Konstanzer held his point total at 7 points at the end of the second half and still led his team in scoring.

"We are going to weather the storm over the next couple weeks until we get our veterans back," said Mr. Lehman. "It was disappointing to lose like that and we could not hit a shot. We're going to keep that loss in the back of our minds."