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ALDEN — The Alden-Conger boys’ basketball team was defeated by Madelia on Tuesday night by a score of 49-43. The loss puts the Knights at an overall 0-3 record.

“We still need improvements,” Knights coach Bill Hintz said. “But we played much better.”

The night started out good for the Knights when Eli Hallman nailed a 3-pointer on the first shot of the game. The Blackhawks answered back quickly with five points to keep the momentum away from the Knights.

The teams played a little sloppy back and forth for a while before the Blackhawks started hitting 3-pointers at will.

“Both teams played the same in both halves, pretty slow and sluggish in the first half and they stepped it up in the second half,” Hintz said.

The main story of the game was the 3-pointers of the Blackhawks. They made 10 on the night which amassed more than 60 percent of their points. On the other hand, the Knights were just 2 for 20 from beyond the line, with both of them coming from Hallman.

“When they got it going, they’re going,” Hintz said. “They couldn’t miss. But we left them open, we couldn’t get a hand in their face and we couldn’t make a 3-pointer.”

Hallman added two free throws to his point total to make it eight for the game.

The first half ended with a score of 20-14 in favor of the Blackhawks, who ended the half with four 3-pointers.

In the second half, the Blackhawks came out firing with a 17-6 run after the Knights made the opening basket of the half. That run gave the Blackhawks a 15-point lead.

Matt Erickson and Elijah Rinehart made plays to help their team get back in the game on a big 12-3 run of their own. That cut the lead to just six points at the time.

The Knights threw everything they could at the Blackhawks for the last few minutes, but just came up a little short at the end with the final score of 49-43.

“Second half especially the last six minutes of the game, the big guy was starting to do something under the basket,” Hintz said. “We just need to get that at the beginning of the game.”

The Knights were without one of their captains and leading scorers as well, Dom Ofsdahl.

“It affects us a lot,” Hintz said.

The Knights’ next game is scheduled for Saturday at Mankato Loyola.

AC stats: Eli Hallman 8 points; Matt Erickson 16 points, 17 rebounds; Tommy Geesman 11 points, 4 rebounds; Elijah Rinehart 8 points, 8 rebounds; Zach Behrens 6 rebounds; Jordan Johnson 5 rebounds