In the second quarter alone, six shots from the Wright City boys basketball team fell halfway into the hoop and promptly popped out again. That’s how the 74-55 loss to conference foe Elsberry went on Friday night.Not helping matters was Elsberry rolling out to an early 8-0 lead. The early run was capped off by a steal and the jam by Trevor Anthony with 6:28 left in the opening quarter.The Wildcats had trouble defending the physicality of Elsberry’s forwards down low in Anthony and Garik Hill. The pair of juniors combined for 31 points in the paint in the game.Wright City Head Coach David Evans said his team was not prepared for how physical the game would be.“We work with the guys to keep that inside position and it was definitely a struggle,” Evans said. “It was one of the first games of the season with as strong of guys down low as they had. It was definitely a bit of an eye-opener. It was one of those things where now that we’ve seen it, we’ll be better prepared for it down the road.”Senior Devon Holmes scored Wright City’s first points of the game with a 3-pointer to cut the lead to 8-3, but the Indians responded, going on a 16-4 run to take a 24-12 lead.Wright City struggled mightily shooting the basketball, going 5-of-16 from the floor in the first quarter. It didn’t fare much better in the waning minutes of the half, shooting 23 percent from the field. Meanwhile, the Indians couldn’t seem to miss, hitting 65 percent of their shots in the first half.“You have those nights. You have those nights where everything goes in and it wasn’t one of those nights. I told the boys last week that we got the calls and we got the shots (against Missouri Military Academy). I told them it might turn around on us some night and tonight it did,” Evans said.The Wildcats tried to claw back into the game early in the second quarter. Freshman Nick Boland nailed a turn-around jumper to cut the lead to 24-14, but Boland and the other Wildcats found themselves in foul trouble in the quarter, including Holmes. That 10-point deficit was as close as Wright City would get the rest of the night.Coupled with its shooting woes, the Wildcats had difficulty with hanging onto the basketball with five turnovers in the first quarter, three of those coming in the first two minutes of the contest.“They were just on a roll,” Evans said of Elsberry. “When that momentum is rolling, it is hard to get it broken and going our way again.”A 10-0 run in the third quarter from Elsberry’s offense proved to be too much to overcome for Wright City. When Anthony and Hill weren’t causing problems down low, it was Derrick Taylor on the perimeter that burned the Wildcats. The junior scored 15 of his game-high 22 points in the second half.For Wright City, Holmes finished with 14 points. J.J. McRoberts chipped in 12 points.Senior Sean McDonald had six rebounds.Elsberry had four players score in double figures in Anthony, Hill, Taylor and Josh Jurkowski. Jurkowski had 10 points in the game.“The boys did show me quite a bit. We’ve been leery to work in a full-court press defensively. Tonight, we had some series where we got out there and we forced some turnovers and turned them into quick baskets. It boosts their confidence, so I think we’re going to take a look at that for the future where some of the guys can put that into their arsenal,” Evans said.The loss put the Wildcats at 3-3 on the year. More importantly, they are winless in conference play thus far. The team takes a break from conference play, traveling down I-70 to face Hermann Thursday.  New Year’s Eve marks a date with Barat Academy, rescheduled from earlier in the season.       .JUMP SHOT — David Liddell connects on a shot from the right wing earlier this month. Wright City travels to Hermann Thursday at 7:30 p.m. Kory Carpenter photo.