Photo by Samantha Davis. Red Rock Central's Abraham Stavnes dribbles into the paint for a layup attempt in the first half against Renville County West at the Fastbreak Holiday Tournament at Southwest Minnesota State University Monday afternoon. Stavnes finished with a team-high 9 points in the Falcons' 68-30 loss.

MARSHALL — The Red Rock Central boys basketball team couldn’t find its rhythm as it fell to Renville County West 68-30 at the Fastbreak Holiday Tournament at Southwest Minnesota State University Monday afternoon behind troubled shooting and turnovers.

“We’re a young team, we know that. I thought our guys didn’t necessarily compete to what we would have liked to see,” RRC head coach Colby Pack said. “They [RCW] came out with a little bit more energy than we did, and shots didn’t fall early for us. You could see the deflating of the tires. It was a long night for us.”

Abraham Stavnes led the team with 9 points to five rebounds, Henry Stavnes followed with 8 points and a team-high four assists, and Austin Imker had a team-best seven rebounds.

The Falcons struggled early on between turnovers and shooting, and couldn’t find their way back within reach after trailing by double digits about halfway through the first half.

“We build on confidence in our young kids. Our leading scorer is a 5-foot ninth grader [Henry]. So, when teams take that away from us, it becomes difficult,” Pack said. “They made it tough for us. They switched screens and they knew our best player.”

RRC has faced a challenging start to its season, dropping its first four games before grabbing a 69-53 win over Yellow Medicine East on Dec. 20, which also was the last time either the Falcons or RCW played a game ahead of Monday.

The Jaguars came in with a 6-1 record.

RRC went scoreless for several minutes in the first half after Max Erickson and Henry got the first two field goals. Turnovers began to become apparent midway through, in addition to a plethora of interior shots not falling in.

The Falcons found themselves down 26 points at the half.

RRC called a timeout after RCW grew a 17-4 lead in the first seven minutes.

The Falcons occasionally ran a full-court press, and were able to notch a steal off it, but couldn’t convert it back to points.

Imker ended a scoring drought after being fouled, and made 1 of 2 free throws.

Abraham next found himself at the charity stripe, and also made one of his free throws to cut into a Falcons’ 23-6 trail.

Finn Batalden hit a 3-pointer from the right wing, yet RRC went into the locker room with a 42-16 deficit.

“They [RCW] basically got whatever they wanted on the offensive end in the first half … Our game is trying to play fast, and they kind of beat us at our own game,” Pack said. “The will to not be okay with being down by 25 points, and try to be a competitor is this thing we got to work on getting better at, which we will get there.”

Henry had a team-high 6 points and Abraham had 4 to lead the Falcons at half.

RCW went on an 8-0 run out of the half to advance the score to 50-16, before Abraham got the and-1 with a free throw.

Ryan Schrupp and Jonathan Driggs crashed the lane several times for the Jaguars, which RRC struggled to find an answer to. The pair consistently found a miss-match standing at 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4 respectively.

“We don’t have a lot of size. We practiced all week trying to jump to the ball and beat flashes, and that’s the one thing that was disappointing,” Pack said. “We didn’t beat them to their spots. They were able to get where they wanted to on the offensive end, once they got there, we really don’t have anything that can stop them, because we don’t have a lot of size.”

Both teams stayed in a man-to-man defense throughout the game’s entirety.

RRC continued to find good looks at the perimeter and on a few fast breaks, but shooting efficiency remained the team’s main challenge.

The game went into running time the last few minutes until the final buzzer, as RCW eclipsed a 35-point lead.

RRC (1-5) will look to get back on track when it next returns home to host Springfield (5-1) on Thursday at 7:30 p.m.

“We got 26 games. We can’t dwell on one loss,” Pack said. “Moving forward, we just want to compete and get better every day … Take practice a little more seriously, and then the results on the floor will come on game night.”