ON THE MOVE — Toronto’s Tanner Ensell drives on Wellsville’s Tyrell Watkins on Friday. - Matt Morrison

WELLSVILLE — The Wellsville boys basketball team has had a rusty start to the season that started with an upset loss to Leetonia and it continues as it fell to Toronto 50-32 on Friday night.

“We have to stay positive,” Wellsville coach Nate Scott said. “I think our guys at some point in time gave up and we can’t have that, we are a young and we have to keep fighting until to the end.”

Wellsville (3-3) kept pace with the Red Knights for the first half of the game as it trailed 29-20 at halftime, but turnovers and poor shooting made a major impact on the Tigers.

“We had many good looks, our best shooter was 0-9 from the 3-point line,” Scott said. “We had a lot of unforced, silly passes and there is no reason to make those middle school passes across the court, but they are young and they have to learn it the hard way.”

The Tigers went 3-for-19 from the 3-point line and had 14 turnovers, but that was not the only problem the Tigers had to deal with.

Toronto (6-1) relied on 6-foot-6 senior Cayden Benton heavily with a game-high 25 points and that gave the Red Knights a strong advantage.

“They have a big kid and he probably had 12 rebounds,” Scott said. “We had no answer for him.”

“I don’t think that we went after that we normally do,” Toronto coach Sean Tucker said. “Sometimes the guys get a little complacent whenever you have a 6-foot-6 kid and he is grabbing rebounds, but there is a lot of times where he can’t grab rebounds, so we have to have more guys on the boards.”

Kam Baker backed Benton with nine points.

Scott is still trying to find a spark within his young team during his first year as a varsity head coach.

“We want to win more,” Scott said. “We understand that is a process, but we have a game tomorrow and we have to bounce back.”

Richie Dowling led the Tigers with nine points and five rebounds. Elijah Douglas had six points, four rebounds, two assists and two blocks.

Toronto won the junior varsity game 60-43.

Chase Heckathorn Brady Fair led the Red Knights with 12 points each.

Haydin Oliver led Wellsville with seven points, while Austin Adkins and Andrew Mackey each added six points.

Wellsville will try and prepare quick as it will travel to Steubenville Central on Saturday .night

“It is tough, but at least we don’t come into practice and see the negative affect of losing we can just go right into the game tomorrow,” Scott said. “Hopefully they play better. We want to win.”

Toronto will host Southern on Saturday.

TOR: 13-16-11-10–50

WE: 12- 8- 5- 7–32

TORONTO SCORING: Aiden Filby 0-0-0, Nolan Dickenson 1-3-5, Noah Karaffa 2-0-5, Kam Baker 3-0-9, Brody Wimters 0-0-0, Brady Fair 0-0-0, Tanner Ensell 3-0-6, Michael Henry 0-0-0, Landon Grimes 0-0-0, Cayden Benton 11-3-25. TEAM TOTALS: 20, 6-9: 50.

WELLSVILLE SCORING: Richie Dowling 3-3-9, Elijah Douglas 2-0-6, Korben Kersey 0-0-0, Landon Ramsey 1-1-4, Dalton Behanna 0-0-0, Nate McGraw 3-0-6, Haydin Oliver 0-0-0, Darnell Roe 0-0-0, Tyrell Watkins 3-0-6, Austin Adkins 0-0-0, TaShawn Williams 0-0-0, Andrew Mackey 0-0-0. TEAM TOTALS: 12, 5-8: 32.

Three-point goals:Toronto 4 (Baker 3, Karaffa), Wellsville 3 (Douglas 2, Ramsey).