FERRIDAY, La. &045; All it took was watching Franklin Academy’s big men running the floor so well in the first quarter for Huntington head coach Cliff McCain to realize where his team is.

And also where it isn’t.

The Hounds don’t have that 6-4 post manning the middle or a 6-1 guard running the show up top. The Cougars have that luxury, something you won’t find with many teams in MPSA Class A, but that doesn’t make anything easier to swallow when you drop your district opener 68-53 Tuesday night.

The Cougars and their 18-2 overall mark may be the early favorite in District 7-A, but the Hounds aren’t ready to accept anything at this point.

&uot;We’ve got another district game Friday, and we’ll have to get back to work,&uot; McCain said. &uot;We’ve got a long way to go. Their size really hurt us. We can do everything right, and they just out-heighted us. It wasn’t a total loss. We’ve got another big one Friday at Tensas. We’ll get back to work and try to get better than we were today.&uot;

Yet it was the Cougars who showed they may have something special this season after coming up short in seasons past despite having plenty of size on the floor for Class A standards. Post player Jonathan Armstrong poured in a game-high 16 points &045; 13 in the first half &045; while fellow post player Caleb Haring finished with 10.

Haring, just a freshman, and Armstrong combined to control the boards and get a ton of second-chance points and putbacks to keep the Hounds from staying in the game. Then guard Myles Stevens helped everyone run the floor on fast breaks, and he finished with 12 points.

&uot;We’ve got the size,&uot; Franklin head coach Mike Kramer said. &uot;That’s our strong point &045; them and the Stevens boy. He’ll get his 20 points or so no matter what. I feel like we can play with anybody when we hustle. When we don’t, we struggle a little bit. If we can keep our two big men healthy, I think we’ll be in good shape down the stretch.&uot;

The Cougars kept the lead in double digits after the first quarter and eventually pulled their starters in the fourth quarter when their lead got as high as 27 points. The Hounds struggled on the offensive end against Franklin’s half-court man defense, taking away the outside shots and putting pressure down on the block.

Franklin led 43-22 at halftime and got it to 52-25 at the 3:03 mark in the third when Devin Evans put in a layup off a fast break. The bucket capped a 9-3 Franklin run to start the quarter.

&uot;We didn’t do as good a job blocking out as we should have, but a lot of times they’d tip it over our shoulders without a foul,&uot; McCain said. &uot;I thought we battled their size as good as we could battle against that size. We played as good a defense as we could play. When we got it in the halfcourt with them, I thought it was a basketball game with them. But running the floor, we can’t get into a running game with (Stevens).&uot;

The Hounds fell into a pit late in the first quarter when the Cougars pulled away for a 25-11 lead, but they clawed back a little bit in the second to keep it a game until halftime. Mike Ferguson scored on a putback at the 4:31 mark, and Ples Arthur scored with 3:56 left to trim the lead to 30-17.

The Hounds had a chance to slice into the lead on their next trip down the floor but came up empty. Franklin then got a basket from Stevens to start a 9-2 run that featured a Fletcher Johnson 3-pointer and a bucket from Armstrong at the 1:41 mark for a 39-19 lead.

&uot;(Our defense) kept them from shooting those 3s,&uot; Kramer said. &uot;We went to a zone with the second team in the fourth quarter, and they hit a couple of 3s. When we hustle, we get to play man. When we don’t, we play zone. We played zone two games last week, and I had a little talk before the game about what the man was going to do for us.&uot;

Huntington had success early in the game and used a bucket from Arthur to take an 8-7 lead at the 4:52 mark in the first quarter. Then the buckets dried up for the Hounds, and Armstrong’s bucket on Franklin’s next trip down the floor sparked an 18-0 run that put the game well in their favor.

Stevens put in a layup off a turnover with 10 seconds left for a 25-8 lead. Stan Hazlip’s 3-pointer at the buzzer stopped the bleeding for Huntington and put the score at 25-11 heading into the second.

Ferguson led the Hounds with 15, while Arthur had 14.