No matter how much growth they have made as players, the Eagles faced a much taller task when they entertained Chaney on Friday night.

The Division II Cowboys were taller at every position on the floor, had more depth and have had a solid first half of the season. All those things were evident in Chaney’s 76-43 victory.

Still, Chaney coach Marlin McGaughy said his team also is trying to jell and put all the pieces together.

“We’re 8-3 now, but we’ve been up and down because we have some young kids in there,” he said. “We’re battling some injuries right now. We’re trying to jell, but the good news about this game tonight is that we got a lot of players some playing time. That’s been our approach and goal all along. We want to play 11 or 12 guys in every game.

Staff photo / Brad Emerine Valley Christian’s Sekou Stanley looks to drive around Chaney’s Ryan Clark.

“We play tremendous ball when we play as a team and play Chaney basketball. We want to get up and down the floor and play hard defense and those will always be staples of our program.”

The Cowboys opened with a 10-2 lead but consecutive 3-pointers from Jaloni Harris and Lohron Brown made it 10-8 and the score was 12-10 before the Cowboys reeled off the final 14 points of the quarter to produce a 26-10 cushion.

Carroll, whose team won the Portage Trail Conference County Division title last season, said there wasn’t much is team could do other than play hard and play with pride.

“(Chaney) kept getting it inside and scoring or getting offensive rebounds and scoring,” he said. “We played hard. Our kids were just overmatched tonight, and sometimes that happens. We’re a Division IV team and we’re young and we’re playing a very good Division II program. You’ll get games like this sometimes.

“We’ve got one starter back and eight kids learning their roles and trying to compete and do what we have to do.”

Doing most of the damage in the paint in the first period was Quincy Jones, who recorded 12 of his 14 points. Cameron Lawrence and Sharrod Taylor both his a pair of 3-point baskets in the first half as Chaney pulled ahead 37-16 at intermission. Lawrence finished with a game-high 17 points and Taylor added 10. William Brown supplied 14 points for Chaney, which led 58-23 entering the fourth quarter.

“We are taller than most of our opponents, but our biggest advantage against most teams isn’t our size, it’s our defense,” McGaughy said. “Our defense leads to a lot of our offense. When we’re putting forth good effort defensively, we’re getting tips, deflections and steals, and those lead to quick points before our opponents can set up defensively.”

Valley Christian was led by Brown’s 13 points. Tyrone Lindsey and Mark Revere added seven points apiece for the Eagles, who are expecting better days ahead.

“As long as we’re giving effort and learning from mistakes, we’ll continue to grow and that will show up when we get back in league play and when we’re playing schools our size (in the postseason tournament),” said Carroll, who was complimenting his players following the contest.