ALBANY — The first game of the season for the Orioles was a tough task — a road game at conference contender Albany, which already had two games under its belt.

The end result was a pill yet harder to swallow: Albany 54, Argyle 39. In fact, the Comets led by 25 points with 5:50 to play in the second half and the Orioles turned the ball over 30 times.

“Tonight was our first game, and you could clearly tell that we haven’t played basketball against other competition in almost a year,” said Nicole Allison, Argyle’s coach. “It’s frustrating. Our practice didn’t translate into the game. I warned them that tomorrow is going to be a hectic practice, because we’ve got a lot of fundamentals to work on. No boxing out; we didn’t take great shots. It’s back to the fundamentals on stuff. We’ve got a lot of work to do.”

The Comets opened the game on an 11-0 run, forcing Allison to call an early timeout less than three minutes after the opening inbound — a play that replaced the tip-off as part of the COVID-19 precautions. 

“That’s not how you want to start off against a team like Albany,” Allison said. “It looked we were out of gas from the get go.”

Argyle’s players responded to the timeout by mounting a 9-3 run over the next 2:20, but then the Comets picked up steam again, pushing its lead to 11 at 20-9 with 9:31 left in the first half. 

Turnovers were the biggest Achilles heel for Argyle. 

“Those always are, and tonight was no different,” Allison said. “We just get out of control and we try to make something happen out of nothing and then we find ourselves losing by 14, 15, 20 points.”

Albany closed out the first half on an 8-0 run to lead 30-15. 

“We know Argyle is a good team with a lot of fire power back from last year We knew what we were up against,” Albany coach Derik Doescher said. “Our kids did exactly what we wanted them to — they scrapped for the ball; got up and down the floor; force the tempo.”

In the opening minutes of the second half, the Comets were a bit lackluster. Argyle hit the first two baskets of the half and held Albany off the scoreboard for nearly three minutes. But then mistakes began to mount for the Orioles — more turnovers; giving up offensive rebounds and uncontested putbacks, and forcing quick shots on offense. That led to Albany putting the game out of reach with a 16-2 run over the course of 8 1/2 minutes to make it 46-21.

“We have to work on our defense, because that was not good. Our let downs let them get ahead. They outran us tonight — and outworked us. It was pretty clear,” Allison said. 

Brianna Dahl led Albany with 20 points on 8 of 13 shooting from the field and another 7 rebounds — three of which came as putbacks in the second half alone. Payton Wachholz finished with 8 points and 7 steals for Albany.

“I’m blessed to have a Wachholz and a Dahl at the guard position. I’m not hiding in a smokescreen — I have two very good guards. When you have that, you’re really lucky as a coach and it opens up options for some other kids,” Doescher said.

Kaiya Zurfluh added 7 points and 5 boards, and in the paint, Gracie Freitag had 7 points and 4 rebounds, and Jada Flannery had 6 points, 4 boards and 3 steals.

“Flannery and Freitag and Zurfluh and (Emileigh) Dallman, I could go right down the list. They really feed off of Payton and Brianna do. It’s nice to see grit,” Doescher said. “We just hope to get better and see how far we can go.”

One player that Doescher said he noticed progressing as the game went on was freshman Alana Durtschi, who finished 2 of 7 from the field with 4 points, 6 rebounds and 2 steals. In the first half, Durtschi made a few mistakes both on the offensive and defensive ends of the court, and Doescher made her known he was watching.

“I got on her in the first half. She’s a freshman and this was probably the first big game she’s been in, and she struggled — she looked tentative, she looked scared. I gave it to her, and in the second half you would have never known she was a freshman. She made some big shots,” Doescher said.

Grace Ganshert and Tori Lantz each had 11 points to lead Argyle. Ganshert added 5 steals, while Lantz had a team-high 6 rebounds.

“I thought Tori did a nice job working inside, and I thought Grace Ganshert did a nice job, too,” Allison said.

The two teams are slated to meet again Jan. 26. By then the circumstances will be different — the game will be in Argyle and each team will have had over 80% of the season under their belt.

“The girls were ready, and you’re supposed to play this way on your home floor. We know it’s going to be a different battle when we go to Argyle because it will be their home floor. This was Game 1 for them, and that’s tough. We’ve got two games under our belt and a little more practice, but I’m very proud of our kids,” Doescher said.