There were moments Friday where you could see West Lincoln playing the type of basketball that first-year head coach Jay Case hopes to see more of in the future.

Sophomore point guard Sangyin Stewart dribbled the ball up into the frontcourt and saw his defender stationed too far back.

Stewart kept his head up and his dribble low before rising up at the 3-point line for a made basket.

In the first quarter the Bears talked defensively as they played a sagging man-to-man defense that ate up any possible driving lanes for Loyd Star.

Those moments weren’t enough to get a win though as an older, more experience Loyd Star team led 18-11 after one quarter and faced few problems in getting a 69-41 win.

Stewart scored a team-high 12 points to lead West Lincoln (2-17). Freshman guard Ty Terrell added eight points while Enrico Price scored six points as did juniors Javarius Lewis. Freshman Jai Fells scored three points for the Bears while Tristin Rollins and Landon Burgess rounded out the WL scoring with two points each.

“We had a decent start, but once some of our starters got in foul trouble, they started to pull away,” said Case. “We’ve been close lately, we were up late on Bogue Chitto and lost on a buzzer beater. We’ve just got to keep working.”

Loyd Star coach Seth Britt saw 11 different players on his team score in the win. Senior Nathan Calcote led the Hornets with 11 points.

Michael Rodriquez, Nathan Mills and Colby Terrell scored eight points each for the Hornets. Junior guard Casen DeHart added seven points as did junior guard Julius Smith. Samuel Redd scored six points, Caleb Yarborough added five points, Craig Bass scored four points, Blake Thronton chipped in three points and freshman Braxton Williams rounded out the Loyd Star scoring with two points in the game.

“I let my guys on the bench have more minutes than usual tonight after we jumped up and they did a good job of maintaining that lead,” said Britt. “We’ve had some guys come in off the bench of late that have given us a boost. The key is how well we take care of the ball when we’re playing East Marion and Amite County.”

Amite County (10-5) is unbeaten in region play and appears to be firmly in control of the no. 1 seed as the division tournament approaches. The Hornets lost 44-41 to the Trojans in their first meeting.

East Marion beat Loyd Star 61-50 when the teams first played on Jan. 14.

The Hornets are set to travel and play at Amite County on Jan. 28, host East Marion on Feb. 1 and wrap up the regular season on Feb. 4 at Bogue Chitto.