Photos by Ray Hamill/HumboldtSports.com – Arcata’s Luke Lemke in action against Cardinal Newman on Thursday.

By Ray Hamill — The Arcata Tigers got an early-season lesson from a hot-shooting Cardinal Newman team on Thursday afternoon, as they lost their opening game at the McKinleyville boys basketball tournament.

Playing their third game of the new season, the Cardinals looked to be in mid-season form and nailed eight first-half 3-pointers to lead by 10 at halftime, and they would run out to a 69-52 victory.

“It’s difficult when a team hits eight 3s in the first half,” Arcata head coach Kellen Maynard said. “They shot lights out.”

It wasn’t all bad for the Tigers, who dropped to 1-1 on the season.

“I thought offensively we had good movement,” Maynard added. “You just can’t dig yourself a 10-point hole against a team like that.

“In the second half, we outplayed them for the most part, it was just right at the end of the game we wore down.”

Senior point guard Brandon Bento-Jackson scored a team-high 20 points in the loss and has looked sharp early in the season, while teammate Josiah Gomez has transitioned well from the soccer field and added 10 points.

Luke Moxon chipped in nine points.

“It was a good learning experience,” said Maynard, who has two sophomores starting and a freshman as his first guard off the bench.

The Tigers will try to bounce back when they continue tournament play on Friday at 4 p.m.