Tooele boys basketball team quickly learned that the visiting Bonneville Lakers are not a team that you want to fall behind early in the game. Bonneville stretched their lead with a 20-11 second quarter and made clutch free throw after clutch free throw to hold on to their lead and pull off the 62-52 victory in Tooele.

The Buffs did fight hard and appeared to be within striking distance of Bonneville a couple times but could not catch a break from the opposite free throw line. Tooele was led by Tanner Stuart who notched 15 points while Matt Trussell poured in 12 of his own in the defeat. Jace Tensmeyer led the Lakers with 18 points, all on six first-half 3-pointers.

In the first quarter, Tooele shut down four of the five players that Bonneville put on the court. The only drawback to that is that it only took one player to give the Lakers an early advantage.

Tensmeyer hit three 3-pointers to help bolster an 9-3 lead early in the first. Tooele did respond with tougher defense and a Taylor Hunt offensive rebound and put back brought Tooele within one point at 9-8 at the end of the first.

Still clinging to a single point lead two minutes into the second quarter, Bonneville constructed a damaging run. Two more 3-pointers by the hot-shooting Tensmeyer and a driving layup by Tyler Anderson helped the Lakers make a 12-2 run on the Buffaloes and enlarged their lead to 24-15.

Reserve guard Jake Holt and Stuart each nailed shots down the stretch of the second period, but the Buffs still found themselves trailing 29-19 heading into half-time.

Bonneville and Tooele mainly traded baskets until the final 1:32 of the third quarter, when the Buffs made a mini-run to close out the quarter. Tooele looked to work it down low during that run and found Hunt for a couple baskets and Trussell even polished his low-post skills to end the quarter on a 6-2 Tooele run. The Buffaloes still found themselves down 39-31 heading into the fourth.

Bonneville made it tough for THS to make a run at them. Nearly every time Tooele would make a basket and look for momentum the visiting Lakers found themselves at the free throw line and hardly missed any shots. Bonneville made 31 of 37 total attempts from the charity stripe, including 19 of 22 in the fourth.

Stuart did help the Buffs get within six points on a 3-pointer and then tipped in a shot that made the score 55-49. However, the Lakers made 7 of 8 free throws down the stretch as Tooele could not get the game any closer.

After falling for the first time in the season, Tooele (2-1) will now host East Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Jake Gordon: jgordon@tooeletranscript.com