DIXON – The climb out of the hole they dug for themselves Thursday night was just a couple of steps too much for the Sauk Valley Skyhawk women.

After falling behind Black Hawk East early, Sauk couldn't finish off a rousing rally in their Arrowhead Conference opener, falling 50-46 at home.

"We realized once we came out so slow that we had to finish fast," Sauk sophomore Lydia Box said, "but we pushed so strong that we were too tired to close it out at the end. We came out not really ready to play, for some reason, and had too much work to do by the time we got things going in the second half."