It was a tale of two halves for the Salthawk boys on Friday night against Derby.

Looking at the final score doesn't do them justice, as they lost 71-46.

The Hutchinson defense was relentless in the first half. They forced five first quarter turnovers that turned into eight of their 10 first quarter points. The Salthawks were knotted up with the Panthers at 10 at the end of the opening period.

Then things slowly started falling apart.

Turnovers started to add up for Hutch. After only turning it over twice in the first period, the Salthawks committed five in the second, which resulted in two Derby 3s and three fast-break layups. But the Salthawks kept fighting. Davian Vigil had six points, while Tre'Vaugh Jones did the dirty work by grabbing five of his nine boards on the night.

The Salthawks still had hope going into the half only down eight, but an avalanche occurred immediately at the start of the second half.

"We completely stopped executing," said junior post Tate Webster. "The press hurt us, it caused us to panic and just gave up a ton of turnovers."

At one point the Salthawks were down 14 in the third quarter, but a scoring surge from Jones and Webster ignited the home team. Then came another bump in the road. Late in the third quarter, Jones knocked down a corner trey to pull Hutch within 10.

However, after the three, a technical foul was called on Jones. Derby knocked down both free throws and hit a 3-pointer to increase the lead to 15.

"Mental breakdowns killed us," Jones said. "We weren't playing hard, getting back on defense, and the turnovers were huge."

The fourth quarter was no different. Derby continued their barrage of 3s and steals, and put the game officially out of reach when both teams emptied their bench with four minutes to play.

"We need to learn from this and move on," Jones said. "We have proven we can play with teams, we just need to keep the effort up throughout the entirety of the game. We have a chance to prove ourselves next Tuesday."

The Salthawks will look to rebound next Tuesday when they host Maize.