FRUITPORT – On paper, the Fruitport and Allendale boys basketball teams seemed pretty evenly matched, with both squads winless in O-K Blue conference play.

That was hopeful for the Trojans, who came into Friday’s home-court matchup with a bothersome four-game losing streak.

But to Fruitport’s chagrin, the contest didn’t turn out to be close at all.

The Trojans came out sluggish in the first half, missing a ton of shots and turning the ball over. Meanwhile Allendale knocked down threes, gained a big lead and eventually downed the Trojans 74-41.

Fruitport fell to 4-7 on the season and 0-4 in the conference. Allendale improved to 6-4 and 1-2.

When asked about his message to the team after the game, Fruitport head coach Steve Enry said, “We talked about learning from our mistakes, then flushing this one down and getting back to work.”

Erny admitted that his team might be struggling a bit mentally at the moment, with the conference losses piling up in recent weeks, but he believes the Trojans can snap out of it.

“There can be that mid-season, late January, early February kind of grind, especially when things are not going your way,” the coach said. “We may be there right now, but character teams push through it. I’m looking forward to seeing how this team responds.”

Both teams were cold for the first few minutes of the game, and the score was tied 2-2 with 5:50 left in the first quarter.

That’s when Allendale got hot, the Trojans did not, and the eventual outcome became obvious pretty quickly.

The Falcons hit four triples in the first quarter while Fruitport struggled badly, only attempting six shots from the floor and making only two of them. The Trojans didn’t have more shots because of the eight turnovers they committed with sloppy passing and ball-handling.

Allendale led 22-4 at the first buzzer.

The second quarter was pretty similar to the first, with Fruitport making only 2 of 11 shots and turning the ball over four more times. Allendale cooled off a bit, scoring only 10 points, and led 32-9 at halftime.

“It was the start of the game,” Coach Erny said about the Trojans’ downfall. “It was something like 9-2 right away, then we had to call a time out. The whole first half we were playing very tentative and cautious with the basketball, instead of attacking. Once we realized we had to attack we did a little better, but by then it was the second half.

“We struggled. This was certainly not the expectation we had, to have a game like this.”

The Trojans finally found some offense in the second half, scoring 14 points in the third quarter and 18 in the fourth, but it was too little, too late.

The score was 54-23 after three quarters, and it never got closer.

To win games in the very tough O-K Blue, you have to get moving well before halftime, and Coach Erny said that lesson hit home very clearly.

“After being down 26 at halftime, a think for our guys to play them pretty even in the third quarter and part of the fourth was a sign we can play with a team like Allendale,” he said. “We just have to get back to work and get better. We’re not done with the process of getting better.”

Ryan Bosch led Fruitport with 10 points, DayDay Williams added nine and Grade Anspach had six.

Jacksen Fitton and Alex Genuise each scored 17 points for Allendale.