The youth movement continues in the Western 14C conference and that is good news for the St. Regis Tigers boys basketball team, which is already off to a hot start to the 2022-23 campaign.

Friday night the Tigers and their Lady Tigers counterparts traveled the 14 miles down I-90 to take on Mineral County rival Superior, with the boys coming home after a 67-30 win over the Bobcats.

The girls, however, suffered their worst loss of the year, falling to the Lady Bobcats 60-24.

Those results were repeated Saturday night in a road trip to Noxon, where the St. Regis boys won easily and the girls lost a hard-fought game to the host Red Devils.

The “veteran” Tigers combo of senior Caleb Ball and junior John Pruitt set the tone of the game versus Superior from the opening tip-off.

Both hit long-range threes as the Cats stormed off to a 16-1 first quarter lead that ended with St. Regis holding a 20-8 lead after eight minutes of play.

Ball had 10 points in the first quarter as part of his game-high 25. He added nine more in the second quarter, helping the visitors built a comfortable 41-11 lead by the end of the first half.

With Pruitt controlling much of the action in the paint, the Tigers outscored Superior 19-9 in the third quarter and headed into the final eight minutes of play leading 60-20 as they cruised to their fifth win against no losses this season.

Pruitt added 13 points to his night’s work.

Significant to the Tigers’ effort was the contribution by the team’s younger players, five of whom are sophomore and three juniors. The underclassmen are being counted on to help take the scoring burden off Ball when needed and have begun to show promise they displayed last year as freshmen.

“The younger guys are coming along, which makes us pretty tough if we can keep it going,” said Tigers head coach Jess Allan.

The youngsters would show even more promise the next evening when the Tigers traveled to Noxon to take on the Red Devils.

Pruitt and Ball had their usual hot starts, with Pruitt pouring in 13 first quarter points, including three nothing-but-net three pointers, while Ball added eight points as St. Regis jumped out to a 28-8 lead at the end of the first period.

Despite a game-high 29 points from Noxon’s Shane Murray, the Tigers increased their lead to 48-23 at halftime, as young shooters Conner Luis and Kaleb Park began hitting from the field.

Both teams played mostly even up the second half as the early St. Regis lead proved to be too much to overtake for the game but outgunned Red Devils.

The win boosted St. Regis boys to 6-0 on the year, while Noxon dropped to 0-3.

For the Lady Tigers, it turned out to be a tough weekend. They entered their game with Superior’s Lady Bobcats sporting a 3-1 mark on the year and ended the weekend at 3-3 with the pair of losses, including a tightly fought 54-48 defeat at the hands of the Lady Red Devils.

Against Superior, the Lady Tigers ran into the Lady Bobcats signature swarming defense and were held to three first quarter points as Superior raced off to a 14-3 advantage.

Superior kept the pedal to the metal in the second quarter as they built a seemingly insurmountable 34-10 halftime lead.

Senior Payton Milender led a trio of Lady Cats who scored in double figures when Superior dominated most facets of the game. Milender score a game-best 16 points and was joined in double-figure scoring by Lanie Crabb, who had 14 and speedy guard Isabella Pereira, who tossed in 11.

St. Regis was paced by all-conference player Macy Hill, who finished with 15 points after getting off to a slow start.

The next night in Noxon, St. Regis faced a 2-2 Lady Red Devil team in what turned out to be a close, hard-fought game the whole way.

At the end of the first quarter, St. Regis held a 14-10 lead, only to watch the Lady Devils shave off three points and make the score 29-28 in favor of the Lady Tigers at the half.

Heading into the final eight minutes of regulation play, St. Regis held onto a narrow 42-40 lead.

But behind the shooting and rebounding of Noxon senior Emily Brown, the Lady Devils erased that lead by outscoring the visitors 14-6, then held off the last St. Regis run to secure their third victory of the year against two losses.

Brown led the Devils with 18 points, while Hill tossed in a game-high 25 points for the Lady Tigers.

St. Regis is now off until January 5 when they host Hot Springs in boys and girls games.

Noxon’s boys and girls host Hot Springs this Tuesday (Dec 20) before also having the holiday break.