Plagued by 36 turnovers, along with a 12 percent success rate at the free throw line, the Brownwood Lions dropped their District 6-4A basketball opener to the rival Stephenville Yellow Jackets, 81-39, Friday night at Warren Gym.

“Turnovers absolutely killed us,” said Lions first-year head coach Jorden Young. “We had more than 20 turnovers at halftime and I got pretty upset. That’s too many for a game, much less for a half. The positive coming out of it is a lot of the mistakes were on us. Stephenville is a good team, and I thought early on we matched their intensity, but a couple of things went bad and we just melted at that point and didn’t fight back.”

Leading 5-4 with 2:44 left in the first period, the Lions (10-12, 0-1) fell victim to a 20-4 run by Stephenville (24-1, 3-0), tumbling into a 24-9 hole with 3:28 left in the opening half.

At intermission, the Lions were down 33-13, having committed 21 of their turnovers in the first two frames, and through three periods Stephenville had opened a 59-25 advantage.

Brownwood also finished 1 of 8 from the free throw line, missing its first seven attempts before its lone conversion with 2:32 left in the contest. Stephenville sank 10 of 21 free throws.

Cannon Calvert scored 14 points for Brownwood trailed by Elias Perez with seven, Durham Brown with five, Judson Coalson and Santiago Alvizo with three apiece, Carson Noe, Grant Gray and Bennett Windham with two each, and Aaron Clevenger with one point.

For Stephenville, Austin Hardin poured in 22 points while also finishing in double figures were Eli Espinoza and Matt Greer with 11 each and Aiden Johnson and Raidan Moody with 10 points apiece.

The Lions will attempt to snap a four-game skid at 7:15 p.m. Tuesday when they visit Graham (15-10, 0-1), which fell to No. 15 Brock (16-8, 1-0) by a 69-47 count Friday night, in their first district road outing.

“On any given night any team can beat any other team in our district,” Young said. “We have a lot of good teams in our district, it’s a competitive district that prepares you for the playoffs and our goal is to get in the playoffs. Going to Graham, they’re well-coached and we’re going to have to show up and be ready to play or it’s going to look a lot like it did tonight. We’re going to continue to grow and I know we weren’t there tonight, but we’re going to get there. It was lopsided tonight, but I promise the Lions are coming and we’re going to continue to work every day to get there.”