The Belding girls basketball team has only lost three games all season.

The first time Fruitport played the Black Knights this year, the Trojans lost 57-17.

So all in all, the Trojans displayed some real progress on Friday, hanging tough with Belding for three quarters, then finally falling 54-38 in their final O-K Silver conference game of the season.

Fruitport is now 6-15 overall and finished 6-8 in the conference standings. Belding is 17-3 and 12-2.

The Trojans led 12-8 after one quarter. The Black Knights responded with an 18-8 edge in the second quarter and led 26-20 at halftime.

Fruitport kept battling and outscored Belding 12-10 in the third quarter, and cut its deficit to 36-32 headed into the fourth.

The big difference came in the final quarter, when the Black Knights put away the win with an 18-6 scoring advantage.

“We knew this was going to be a tough one going in,” said Fruitport head coach Brian Packard. “Belding shoots the ball from the perimeter like crazy. The first time we played them we couldn’t guard the perimeter at all. We did much better in this area.

“We came out and played well in the third and outscored them, but we couldn’t keep the pace through the fourth and their press gave us some problems. We have had some really good spurts as of late, and we are building for a strong finish next week.”

McKenzie Beardsley led Fruitport with 12 points; Lainey Bol added eight and Lily Johnson scored seven, all in the first quarter.

The Trojans will wrap up the regular season with a road game at Sparta next Thursday, then will begin district tournament play the following week.