Three days removed from their intersquad scrimmage Friday night, Evin Farris’ Belle Lady Tiger basketball team opened their season at home Monday night against Richland’s Lady Bears.

Trailing 18-8 after one quarter, Belle could not get any closer before falling to the visitors from Pulaski County 70-50 in spite of a game-high double double of 24 points and 10 rebounds from sophomore Halle Smith.

Gracie Schultz also reached double figures for the Lady Tigers 12 gures which included a 7-11 showing from the free-throw line.

Erin Schalk followed with five points along with three third-quarter points and a team-high five steals from Baylie Cadwallader.

Rounding the Belle scoring with two points a piece were Chloe Krause, Grace Busch and Olivia Sanders.

Also on the varsity roster for Farris’ Lady Tigers are Susie Moman, Abby Keeney, Maddie Rohrer and Lauren Prigge.

Richland was led by Miranda Moss’ team-high 20 points.

In a two-quarter junior varsity game, the Lady Tigers fell 8-2 to Richland with Faith Gieck accounting for Belle’s two points.

Having the rest of this week off, Farris’ varsity Lady Tigers will return to action next week at the Eugene Girls Basketball Tournament.

Divided into two pools of three teams, second-seeded Belle will be in the same pool as third-seeded Tuscumbia and sixth-seeded Linn.

Top-seeded Eugene, fourth-seeded St. Elizabeth and fifth-seeded Calvary Lutheran will make up the other pool.

Pool action in Eugene for Belle will kick off on Tuesday, Nov. 27 against Tuscumbia at 6 p.m., before concluding next Wednesday against Linn at 7:30 p.m.

Depending on the pool-play results, Belle will either play on Friday or Saturday for consolation, third place or the championship..