Eudora ? The youth movement for the Veritas Christian girls basketball squad was apparent when the Eagles faced Topeka Cair Paravel on Friday night at the Eudora Community Learning Center.

Veritas – which has no seniors – went down, 59-34, to a Lions team that boasts five seniors.

The Cair Paravel boys made it a clean sweep, knocking off the senior-laden Veritas boys, 60-40.

“We’re a young team, and we’ve really got to find ourselves,” Veritas girls coach Kevin Shelton said. “Cair Paravel is one of the top teams in our league and has been for years.

“Their pressure just really played a toll on us coming out of halftime. We didn’t handle that pressure well, but we’re going to get better, and we’re going to improve on that.”

That pressure resulted in a 10-0 run by Cair Paravel to start the second half. The Lions added to their five-point halftime lead as the Eagles were unable score their first basket until halfway through the third quarter.

Shelton’s biggest area of concern is finding a solid rotation to build around Kristie Tiegreen. She led all scorers with 18 points – more than half of her team’s final score.

“I think Kristie Tiegreen played her heart out on the court,” Shelton said. “She’s an excellent player; we’ve just got to get better around her.”

Tiegreen also came down with 25 of Veritas’ 43 rebounds, something she said she loves doing.

“I just get excited when I get to rebound,” Tiegreen said. “That’s probably my favorite thing to do is rebound and put back. It’s just exciting.”

For the Veritas boys, it’s more of a case of not having that big-time player to build around like their female counterparts enjoy.

Micah Barclay was the Eagles’ leading scorer with 10 points, followed by Josh Masrud with eight.

“We’re not an extremely talented team, but hopefully hard work is going to get us a few wins this season,” Veritas boys coach Doug Bennett said.

The Lions added to the Eagles’ offensive woes when they switched up their defense with about three minutes left in the first half, leading to 21 Veritas turnovers on the night.

“It was really frustrating,” Barclay said. “We would pass it around a couple of times and either get the ball taken or we just weren’t getting many looks. We’ve got some new plays for that … and some of us are new on the team and we’re just going to have to get used to stepping up and shooting the ball some more – even with a hand in our face.”

On a night where the Eagles struggled to knock down shots – they finished just 25 percent from the field – their inability to rebound became a huge factor in the Lions’ margin of victory.

Veritas was outrebounded, 58-34, and only came away with 10 offensive boards to limit their attempts at second-chance points.

“Our inside game is not real strong,” Bennett said. “But we just need to shoot the ball better and we’ve got to get that rebound differential a little bit closer.”

The Veritas boys will travel to play St. Mary’s Academy on Tuesday before returning home.

Both the girls and boys teams will play host to Wichita Christian next Friday and Wichita Word of Life next Saturday.