KARNS CITY — The only gremlin in the Karns City High gym Wednesday night was the one keeping shots from falling.

Both Karns City (2-3) and Punxsutawney (4-3) shooters struggled with their touch, but the Gremlins were particularly squelched in a 57-44 loss.

Karns City was 16-of-63 from the floor, including 5-of-28 from 3-point range, in the loss.

"That tells me we are getting decent looks — our guys really don't take a lot of bad shots — but we're just not converting," said Karns City coach Chris Bellis. "We couldn't get the ball in the basket."

Blame that mischievous gremlin — and a lost summer.

Bellis was hired in late June and the team had only 10 open gym workouts.

Throw in another football run that kept several key players out of preseason drills, and the Gremlins were in catch-up mode from the start.

"That game may not have been won tonight. It may have been won in the summer," Bellis said. "They probably got a little bit more out of their summer than we did.

"Right now, we're just getting started," Bellis added. "A lot of teams anymore play 20, 25 games in the offseason. We didn't have any. Now we're in our fifth game and we have to hope by our 20th game we are ready to go and in playoff form."

Punxsutawney began the game by missing its first eight shots and was 1-of-14 in the first quarter.

But Karns City's shooting woes kept the Gremlins from running away early.

The Chucks were able to shoot better in the second half. The Gremlins weren't.

"We've been struggling shooting the ball this season," said Punxy coach Chad Long. "We just have to go all-out on defense and that will help our offense. That happened tonight."

The Chucks did contest a number of Karns City shots, but the Gremlins missed an inordinate number of layups.

It's a work in progress, Bellis said.

"We just have to figure out a way to start knocking down some shots," the coach said.

That might come with arduous work in practice. Bellis plans to ramp up his shooting drills in hopes of breaking his team out of its funk.

"I think we have to do our shooting drills at game speed all the time," Bellis said. "You can only simulate so much."

Karns City led 9-3 at the end of one quarter and by seven in the third period before Punxy launched a run that overtook the Gremlins.

Chucks senior Dane Kopas sealed the game at the line, going 14-of-17 in the game and 9-of-11 in the fourth quarter to nurse the lead.

Kopas led all scorers with 23 points.

Brandon Collier notched a double-double for the Gremlins with 14 points and 12 rebounds. Eric McCue also scored 14 points for Karns City.

The key to the Gremlins' season moving forward appears to be shooting.

"Our guys are running things correctly and getting good looks at the basket," Bellis said. "I thought we played hard and well on defense. We just have to get those shots to fall."

PUNXSUTAWNEY 57Corban Cressley 0-1 0-0 0, Daniel Triponey 2-4 0-0 4, Logan Weaver 2-8 2-4 7, Kyle Neal 5-8 2-3 12, Doug Dale 0-0 1-2 1, Darren Pifer 2-7 0-0 4, Dane Kopas 4-15 14-17 23, Jordan Mesoraco 2-4 0-1 4, Alex Fedigan 1-2 0-0 2.

Totals: 18-49 19-27 57.

KARNS CITY 44Brandon Collier 4-13 4-4 14, Jesse Garing 0-1 0-0 0, Cameron Harp 0-1 0-0 0, Aaron Markle 1-7 2-4 4, Eric McCue 6-15 1-4 14, Evan Olszak 2-9 0-0 4, Brad Fuhrer 2-13 0-0 5, Jake Henry 0-2 0-0 0, Brandyn Bowser 1-2 0-0 3.

Totals: 16-63 7-12 44.

Punxsutawney 3 15 16 23—57Karns City 9 13 12 10—443-point goals: Punxsutawney 2 (Weaver, Kopas); Karns City 5 (Collier 2, McCue, Fuhrer, Bowser).

JV Score: Punxsutawney 43-40

Friday: Moniteau at Karns City