The Martin boys’ varsity basketball team improved its season record overall to 2-0 with a 50-30 victory Friday evening at Galesburg-Augusta.

The girls’ team, however, was on the short end of a 46-26 verdict against the host Rams later in the evening. The Lady Clippers’ record now is 1-3 after defeating Saugatuck 53-43 Tuesday night.

Martin led throughout the ballgame, 13-5 at the end of the first quarter and 24-16 at intermission. The Clippers widened the gap to 34-20 at the close of the third period. In the end, it was defense that made the difference.

Carter Hilton led Martin with 19 points, Tanner Curry had 13 and Curry added five assists and 11 rebounds. Bryan Beard had 12 points for Galesburg-Augusta.

Coach David Curry said his charges went on a 13-4 run to finish out the first quarter, but “the second quarter got pretty ugly for us as we had trouble taking care of the basketball and let G-A start to control the tempo. Tanner and Matt (MacVean) got into a little foul trouble and as a result spent several minutes on the bench. This is where GA took advantage and forced our guards to go into fast forward and the result was many turnovers for us.”

The Rams pulled to within 5 at one point, but Martin was able to stretch the lead to eight by the end of the second.

“After a talk at halftime to remind them to keep their composure under pressure, we came out in the third and were able to control the tempo and play some of our best basketball of the night.  Our defense really did a great job and held them to only four points in the third quarter and offensively we showed great patience and was able to lead by 14 at the start of the fourth.

“Our defense continued to impress at the start of the fourth and we went on a 8-2 run to open the lead to 20… I thought we did a tremendous job of coming out after half and taking control of the tempo.  In doing this we were able to continue to stretch our lead as the game wore on.  We were able to substitute often and the guys coming in off the bench did a great job of continuing to execute offensively and defensively.

The coach added, “It was an ugly first half, but in the end we came away with the win. I’m proud of the way the kids fought through the ups and downs of the game and just continued to play until we got things going our way again.”