One game does not a season make nor, for that matter, does one quarter make a game.

Bryan County boys’ basketball coach Jason Napier could not have asked for a better start to his second season last Friday night when his youth dominated team exploded for 27 points in the first quarter of their first game.

The Redskins, however, could not sustain that momentum and wound up dropping a 70-64 decision to a veteran Wayne County team at Robert Bowers Gymnasium. Bryan County will be idle this week until it hosts South Effingham at 7:30 p.m. Saturday.

Coming off an outstanding 22-9 season that saw them advance to the Elite Eight in the Class A-DII state playoffs the Redskins returned only four players who saw significant playing time last year:  seniors Gerbravion Collins, Darius Edwards and Cayden Rawls and junior Aaden Frederick.

The rest of the varsity roster consists of seven sophomores and six freshmen. Add in that by Napier’s estimation nearly two-thirds of the roster also played football---Napier is also an assistant in football---made for a belated start to practice thus adding to a lot of unknowns.

You couldn’t tell it by the first quarter as the Redskins came out looking like a polished unit with sophomores Jordan Carlos and Braeden Sharpe joining the three seniors in the starting lineup.

Getting off to an 11-0 start with Carlos making two three-pointers and Rawls another proved difficult to sustain against the Yellowjackets who started five seniors. Overall, the Jackets have nine seniors and seven juniors.

Edwards scored 25 points to lead Bryan County with Rawls adding 12. Carlos finished with nine and Frederick, the lone junior on the team, getting eight.

While disappointed at losing Napier agreed the Redskins showed potential and he attributed a lot of his team’s difficulties down the stretch to a lack of “basketball conditioning” and limited practice time up to this point in addition to introducing several new players to varsity competition.

“I told them as far as our effort it was really good but unfortunately the chemistry is not there because we have so many young kids,” Napier said. “We have so many young players who are still trying to figure out how they fit in and for me how they perform out there.

“I thought Carlos, for example, did really well,” Napier said. “He’s a young kid but he gave us nine points. Darius was our leader tonight.

“We got tired. We’ve been running a lot because we know we’re going to press and that kind of stuff so we’ve got to get our legs under us. We’ve only had two weeks of practice. Gerbravion, for example, still has his football legs.”

The Redskins led 27-16 at the end of the first quarter and got baskets from Frederick and Edwards to start the second quarter for a 31-16 bulge. From that point on it was a dogfight as Wayne County refused to fold and began to whittle into the deficit.

The Jackets closed the half on a 7-0 run over the final three minutes to trail, 37-33, at the break and finally went in front for the first time, 42-41, with 3:19 left in the third quarter on a pair of free throws by Dwayne Smith.

Bryan County regained the lead as Frederick made a free throw and sophomore Gerome Lee added two free throws. It was back-and-forth from that point on with Wayne County taking the lead for good, 58-56, when 6-foot-6 center Ralph Doomes scored with 3:27 to play.

The Redskins trailed 66-62 with 56 seconds left after Edwards made a pair of free throws but couldn’t get any closer. Doomes had 25 points for the Jackets several of them coming off put backs of missed free throws and that was a sore point with Napier.

“I was disappointed with our rebounding,” Napier said. “We gave up about four or five rebounds off free throws and they scored on those possessions. You cannot give up free throw rebounds.

“I thought one of the single biggest factors in the game was the 50-50 balls,” Napier said. “On loose balls they were just stronger than we were. There were several possessions off a rebound or a loose ball where we had the ball and they just snatched it from us. Almost bullied us a little bit.”