Playing solid defense and rebounding wins games.

Convincing his Plains Horsemen of those primary laws of basketball physics, coach Tyrel Allen and his boys broke a three-game losing streak to open the season by defeating Noxon 47-45 in Plains Friday. In other action last week, the Horsemen played well and took the Clark Fork Mountain Cats to overtime but lost 55-44 in Superior Saturday.

Now 1-2 in 14C action and 1-3 overall, the Horsemen host Hot Springs Thursday and visit St. Regis Friday.

Allen was glad to see his Horsemen finally get his defend-and-rebound message. “Our guys had been trying to do too much in the first few games this season,” he said. “So it was good to see us slow down and take care of business better.”

Jayden Weeks led the Horsemen to the win over Noxon with 11 points, Tucker Foster scored nine, Gabe Gamboa, Duncan Chisholm and Nathan Feliksa six apiece, Parker Flock five, and Gavin Regalado and Garth Parker two apiece.

Chisholm also grabbed four steals and passed out four assists for Plains.

See other story for Noxon scoring.

Against Clark Fork, Flock scored 17 points to lead Plains, Feliksa and Parker added eight each, Chisholm five, Foster four and Weeks two. Feliksa speared a team-high 12 rebounds, Foster secured nine and Flock six.

Carson Callison (17 points), Aaron Waddle (15) and Bryan Mask (12) led Clark Fork, which outscored Plains 11-0 in overtime to grab the conference win.

“We played well in Superior, especially in the first half,” Allen offered, “but turnovers killed us in overtime after a few of our kids had fouled out.” Flock also hurt his foot against Clark Fork, and sat out large stretches of the game thereafter, although Allen says he was at practice this week.

Allen looks forward to this week’s game with Hot Springs and St. Regis. The Horsemen had their way with St. Regis last year and the Tigers probably still remember losing to Plains in the 14C title game.

“We are starting to figure some things out,” he said. “Our size underneath poses some problems for other teams, nobody in the conference matches up that well with us. We need to take advantage of that as we move forward.”