There were good stretches and bad stretches for the Highland boys basketball team, but the Huskies ultimately could not keep pace with the English Valleys Bears on Tuesday, falling 85-62.

The Huskies, coming off a loss to Hillcrest, sought to take down a team in English Valleys that had only beaten them by a single point a year ago. Highland took their one and only lead of the game early on at 7-5. However, a Bears 3-pointer put them on top, and that was that. The lead slowly increased over the next two quarters, and English Valleys took a 49-36 advantage into the break.

The third quarter saw Highland have both one of its poorest stretches of the game, and one of its best. The Bears went on a 13-0 run to begin the quarter, and built their lead to as many as 27 points. From that point, however, Highland’s Landon Roling took over the game in seemingly every way. Roling dropped 15 points in just about 5 minutes, and was the sole scorer for his team during the third quarter. Roling also rebounded well and stole several passes, contributing to at that point was already an impressive performance.

Unfortunately for Roling and the Huskies, English Valleys was able to keep the Huskies from being any more threatening than that. The lead never got smaller than 11, and the Bears pulled it back out in crunch time to take a 23-point win, 85-62.

Highland head coach Bill Zyweic spoke to KCII after the game, where he was optimistic about his team despite the loss. “You know, at times, I thought we played extremely well. We talked back there, offensively, we can score with just about everybody. But we gotta get tougher on the defensive end. I thought we did some really good things, I know we shot the ball well from outside, I thought we were very unselfish with the ball.”

Roling led all scorers with 33 points, and is now averaging 22.5 a game for the season. Bryce Hazelett got into double-digits with 11. English Valleys was led by their two guards. Everett Bender had 28, and Christian Tripses had 23.

Highland is 0-2 for the season. They play once again on Friday, at home against Cedar Valley Christian in a battle between the Huskies. Cedar Valley Christian is 1-1 on the year, and defeated Midland 56-33 on Thursday.