Dayville/Monument’s PJ Davis battles a Huntington player for the ball during her team’s game with the Lady Locomotives on Saturday, Jan. 7, 2023, in Monument. Davis led her team with six points in the game.

MONUMENT — The Dayville/Monument Lady Tigers played one of their best defensive quarters of the season on Saturday, Jan. 7. The effort wasn’t enough, however, as they fell 40-16 to the Huntington Lady Locomotives on their home floor.

Scoring was hard to find for both teams in the first half as Huntington took a slim 15-6 lead into halftime. The Lady Locomotives broke the game wide open in the third quarter, however.

The Lady Tigers were held to just six points in the third. By contrast, Huntington scored as many points (15) in the period as they did in all of the first half. The Lady Locomotives would take a commanding 30-12 lead into the final quarter of play.

The fourth quarter saw the Lady Tigers cutting into passing lanes and creating turnovers, but their comeback efforts were stifled by their inability to generate points off those turnovers.

Huntington scored 10 points in the final frame while the Lady Tigers would only add four points to the scoreboard, ending any hope of a comeback.

The loss leaves the Lady Tigers at 4-9 on the season as they gear up for a slate of league games later on this month.

PJ Davis led all scorers for the Lady Tigers, finishing with six points in the game. Sierra May added four points, and three other Lady Tigers finished the game with two points apiece.

Dayville/Monument head girls basketball coach Shyanne Winters said she was pleased with the team’s defensive effort but added they need to translate that into offense.

“Defensively, we had one of the best games we’ve ever played,” she said.

“They played hard and they wanted defensive steals. Offensively, we just couldn’t get our shots to fall. That is going to come. This is a young team, and that comes with some experience.”

Winters said her team has seen massive improvement since the season started.

“We’ve made huge, huge strides just in general, especially defensively,” she said. “Offensively, we’re starting to get some better looks at the basket than we did at the beginning of the year.”

The Lady Tigers will travel to John Day for an intra-county showdown with Grant Union’s JV squad on Tuesday, Jan. 10. Tipoff for the game is scheduled for 6 p.m.