The Martin boys’ basketball team lost its season opener 49-36 to Galesburg-Augusta, owing somewhat to depleted ranks with illness.

“We were a little outmanned tonight, as a couple starters were home sick,” said coach Brad Moelker. “I was proud of the guys we did have tonight. Three of them played almost the entire game and they gave everything they had. It will be nice to get the rest of our players back in the gym this week.”

The Clippers were only down by one, 9-8, in the first period, but Galesburg did a nice job varying its defense and opened up a lead.

“We have not even had a practice with our entire team, so their defense did a nice job of taking us out of our comfort zone,” Moelker said. “They also hit a couple big threes when the game was close. After that… they pushed their lead in the third. It was definitely a rough start.”

Cole Altman had a nice game for Martin with 17 points and nine rebounds. Karter Ribble let the game come to him and scored eight points.

“He will continue growing as this was his first real action playing point guard at the varsity level,” the coach said. “One of the highlights was Mel Gonzalez, our foreign exchange student playing in his first game. He scored seven points, had five rebounds and four steals.”

In another basketball game Tuesday night, the Wayland girls edged Caledonia 43-42 to push their season record to 2-1. Meanwhile, the Hopkins girls fell to 1-2, losing a defensive struggle 27-19 to Allendale.