From staff reports

After seeing their first two scheduled games of the season cancelled due to the success of their football team, and four days after football season ended Friday, the W.S. Neal basketball teams took the court Tuesday in Excel for their first games of the season.
In Tuesday’s games, the WSN Lady Eagles were the lone team to come away with a win as they downed the Lady Panthers 34-23 to start their season 1-0.
In B-team action, WSN lost 40-15 to start 0-1 while the varsity Eagles lost 69-35 to start their season 0-1 as well.

Excel 40, WSN B-team 15
In B-team action, WSN was outscored by Excel 12-5 in the first quarter, but trailed 16-10 at the half after outscoring the Panthers 5-4 in the second quarter.
In the second half, it was all Excel as they outscored the B-team Eagles 24-5 in the half to get the win by 25 points.
In the third quarter, Excel outscored WSN 13-3. In the fourth, the Panthers held an 11-2 advantage.
For the B-team Eagles in the loss, Matthew Brown led with four points while Marvin Maddox and Keaton Yuhasz added three points each. De’Ron Smith and Josh McMillan both had two points each while Trey English added one point.

WSN Lady Eagles 34, Excel 23
After a slow start in the first half, WSN’s Lady Eagles turned things around in the second half to claim a 34-23 win over the Excel Panthers.
WSN found themselves down 7-5 after one quarter and 16-9 at the half after Excel held a 9-4 scoring advantage in the second quarter.
In the third quarter, WSN held Excel to one point while pouring in 11 of their own to claim a 20-17 lead. In the fourth, WSN ended the game on a 14-6 run to get the win by 11 points.
WSN head coach Buddy Powell said his team got behind early due to some nerves, but changed defenses in the second half that led to some easy baskets.
“We went into a man-to-man press and that got us going offensively with some steals and easy baskets,” he said. “The press got us going after a nervous first half. We are young with nine freshmen, two sophomores, four juniors and no seniors. We do need to improve on our free throws as we were 7-for-24 for 29 percent.”
KeKe Floyd led WSN with 12 points while Marisha Frazier added eight. MiMi Lawson and Jashira Dees both had four points each while Alexis Morrison had three and Janiya McCants had two.
Frazier led with six rebounds while Floyd and Morrison both had one assists each. Floyd finished with a double-double as she led with 10 steals in the win and Frazier added one block.

Excel 69, WSN varsity 35
After just ending football season Friday night, the WSN varsity boy’s basketball team hit the court Tuesday in Excel and suffered a 69-35 loss.
Excel led 12-6 after one quarter and 22-10 at the half. In the third quarter, Excel outscored WSN 17-10 to increase their lead to 51-26. In the fourth, Excel doubled up WSN 18-9 to help them claim the 34-point win.
TyShawn Davis led with 11 points while Treylon Watson and Jacobey Hawthorne had five points each.
DJ Hodges provided four points while Andre Womack and Darius Tolbert had three points each.
Malcolm Hawthorne and Kenneth Walker all had two points each in the loss.
Malcolm Hawthorne led with four rebounds while Davis and Watson had two steals each. Davis, M. Hawthorne and Walker all had one block each.