The Armadillo basketball team started District play when they traveled to Early on Dec. 31. The Dillos jumped out to a 15-8 lead after the first quarter. In the second, Early cut our lead to 3 and the Dillos lead at the half 25-22. In the third quarter, the Dillos increased their lead by 2, ending the third quarter up 36-31. After another quarter of play the lead would remain the same and the Dillos won their District opener 47-42. Leading scorer for the Dillos was Luke Cox with 11 pts, Kelan Verette with 10 pts, J.T. Mathis with 9 pts, Ryan Pannell with 7 pts, Clayton Perry with 4 pts, and Ryan Guidroz, Tanner Hawkins, and Aaron Perez with 2 pts each.On Jan. 3, the Dillos played host to the Dublin Lions, who is one of the favorites picked to win our district in the pre-season polls. Dublin took the first quarter lead jumping out to a 12-7 lead. In the second quarter, each team scored 10 pts and Dublin lead at the half, 17-22. The third quarter is the one that did the damage. Dublin went on a run in the third quarter and got up by as much as 18 pts, and ended the quarter with a lead of 40 – 26. The Dillos fought back in the fourth and cut Dublin’s lead to 9, losing the game 37-46. I was proud of the way our guys came out and played against Dublin. They are one of the district favorites and we gave them everything we had and fell a little short. Luke Cox had a great game scoring 20 pts., had 12 rebounds, and 3 blocked shots. Others scoring for the Dillos: Clayton Perry with 9, Ryan Pannell with 5, and Ryan Guidroz with 3.On Jan. 6, the Dillos had another tough one, this one on the road against Bangs, who is another team from our District that is favored to finish in the top of the district. Things started a little slow in the first quarter as Bangs took the first quarter lead 5-0. The Dillos got on track in the second quarter outscoring Bangs 16-9 and took the lead at the half, 16-14. Bangs outscored the Dillos in the third quarter, 12-8 and took a 27-24. In the fourth, the Dragons outscored the Dillos 13-12 and won the game 39-36. This was an exciting game!!! We traded the lead with Bangs from the second quarter on. With about three minutes left in the game, Bangs went on a 6-0 run. Down by 5, the Dillos clawed their way back into it and with less than a minute remaining, and had to go into foul mode. Bangs missed the front end of their one and one and we went down and missed a three, then had to foul again. Then, after another missed free throw by Bangs, the Dillos took it down and Clayton Perry hit a big three for us and cut Bangs lead to 36-38. After that we had to foul and Bangs made one of their free throws and went up 36-39. And that’s how it ended. Our kids really played their hearts out. I couldn’t have been any more proud of them, though!!!! They continue to get better each day and each game. Luke Cox also had a good game scoring 13 pts. Ryan Pannell had 3 pts and 9 rebounds, J.T. Mathis had 2 pts, and Kelan Verette had 1 pt. We will play Hamilton on Jan. 10, and will host Coleman on Jan. 13.