District 18-5A tipped off with opening night for the boys basketball games. Alief Taylor kicked off its game on the road against Katy and came away with a 57-49 victory. Taylor coach Jeff Durnford knew coming into this game that it would be tough, but was pleased that his Lion team was the victors.

“Well you want to get off to a good start and any win you get on the road in district is a good one,” Durnford said. “We knew what we were going to get and knew this would be a tough game. It was a good win for us and it will help us.”

Early on it was the Lions jumping out to a first-quarter lead spearheaded by defense that turned into transition points. Taylor’s Kalif Bakane knocked down back-to-back three pointers to give the Lions the edge.

But before half, Katy bounced back and out scored Taylor 12-6 led by Stephen Blanchard’s inside game. After the lead changed several times, the Lions found themselves down by one at halftime. Durnford said the locker room talk was simple and right to the point.

“We just talked about effort,” Durnford said. “We weren’t making the effort we needed to make defensively, we weren’t in the passing lanes and I thought on offense we settled for too many threes. But the difference was we made some shots and made some plays that we didn’t in the first half.”

And the adjustments were made. The Lions started feeding their big man, Christian Salazar down low to work against Katy’s zone defense.

“He (Salazar) is our best rebounder by far and is probably our best effort guy,” Durnford said. “He made so many plays tonight. He’s not going to get you 20 (points), but he’ll get you 8-10 rebounds a night and plays great defense.”

But Katy did not go away without a fight. Tiger guards Tanner Elenburg (offensively) and Raymond Johnson (defensively) and was the spark plug Katy needed to go on a run. Katy went to an aggressive press defense that caused the Lions to turn the ball over.

It wasn’t until late in the fourth quarter when the game was starting to lean more towards Taylor. With Denzel Stevenson having the hot hand from behind the arch and Bakane sinking his free-throw shots, the Lions start district play 1-0.

HIGH SCORERS
AT – Denzel Stevenson (16)
AT – Kalif Bakane (14)
AT – Christian Salazar (14)
K – Stephen Blanchard (14)
K – Tanner Elenburg (14)