YAKIMA - Moses Lake Christian Academy (MLCA) found the going rough on the road Saturday as the team dropped a nonleague game, 59-36, to 2B powerhouse Riverside Christian.

"The Crusaders are a top 10 team in the next classification up" coach Bryce McPartland said. "They're are senior laden with a lot of size and experience and play tough at home. We knew all of that going in ... knew this would be a challenging game ... but we also had higher expectations for ourselves."

The usually high-octane Lions got out of the gate slowly. scoring just 3 first quarter points, and were down 27-12 at the half. MLCA outscored the Crusaders 17-11 in the third quarter of action, but only managed 7 points to Riverside's 21 in the fourth, and dropped the contest by 23 points.

"After being down 15 at halftime, we scored the first three baskets of the third, and continued to fight back, closing the gap to 6 points," McPartland said. "Things were looking up, but they hit a buzzer beater at the end of the third quarter and that seemed to really take the wind out of our sails. The fourth quarter was what it was. We fought back, but had run out of gas."

McPartland said he thought the Lions could take advantage of their speed against a taller team, but that just wasn't the case as MLCA finished with fewer shots and turned the ball over 30 time in the game.

"Their bigs were very large kids, and moved very well. You'd look at them and think we might run them, or cause them some problems with our speed, but it wasn't happening," he said. "We played tentative, scared, and it was very frustrating because young as we are, that's not typically how we play."

Madison Yamane led the offensive output for the Lions with 10 points. Anna Yarbro had 9 points and 16 rebounds, Dani Sandberg added 7 points and Mikaela Loudon finished with 6.

MLCA gets a chance to get back in the win column when the Lions head to Columbia Basin Secondary School tomorrow night to take on the Lady Phoenix. The game is scheduled to get underway a 6 p.m.