JACKSON TWP — Right from the start, the Seneca Valley boys basketball team struggled to find its game.

The Raiders scored four points in the first quarter and, despite holding several brief leads in the second half, lost a 52-43 decision at home to North Hills Tuesday night.

"You have to give credit to North Hills," said Raiders coach Victor Giannotta. "But the other half of it is our lackadaisical approach to a section home opener. I wish I had the answer."

The Raiders (5-2, 0-2) shot 30 percent (11-of-36) from the field, were outrebounded 30-17 and committed seven of their 17 turnovers in the decisive fourth period.

Seneca Valley's deficit was only one point with a quarter left, but when North Hills' Conner McIntyre scored two of his 12 points with 2:03 remaining, the Indians' lead was pushed to 46-36.

Alex Maxfield and Christian Durbin each hit buckets for the Raiders, but the rally fell short.

The Indians (2-7, 1-2) entered the game on a seven-game losing streak and were 0-2 in Section 3-AAAA play after losses to Butler (58-44) and Central Catholic (55-38).

"We've had three of our top six guys out with injury the last few weeks," said Indians coach Buzz Gabos. "Tonight, we finally had them all on the floor.

"At 0-2 in the section, we knew this was a game we had to have," he added. "And if we did lose, we had to leave everything on the floor."

Breakdowns in Seneca Valley's defense led to many easy layups for the Indians, in particular McIntyre and Scott Zubik, who led all scorers with 19 points.

"A lot of it was just guys going toward the basket," said Gabos. "When you have that, sometimes things open up."

"We were a step slow in our defensive rotations," said Giannotta. "On offense, we had a lot of rushed shots. Our game was just not on tonight."

While SV struggled shooting the ball, North Hills was very efficient, making 17 of its 29 attempts from the field, including six of seven in the second quarter.

Durbin led the Raiders with 15 points and D.J. Scott had 16 points for North Hills.

NORTH HILLS 52Brody Zangaro 1 2-4 4, D.J. Scott 5 6-11 16, Scott Zubik 6 7-11 19, Nate Marx 0 1-2 1, Conner McIntyre 5 2-3 12, Alex Wright 0 0-0 0, Jeff Witt 0 0-0 0, Joe Dice 0 0-0 0.

Totals: 17 18-31 52.

SENECA VALLEY 43Nate Herrmann 1 6-8 9, Joe Belechak 2 1-2 7, Marco Corona 1 1-3 3, Pete Vicente 0 2-2 2, Evan Mitro 1 0-0 2, Christian Durbin 4 6-6 15, Alex Maxfield 2 0-0 5, Matt Smith 0 0-0 0.

Totals: 11 16-21 43.

North Hills 11 12 9 20—52Seneca Valley 4 15 12 12—433-point goals: North Hills (none); Seneca Valley 5 (Belechak 2, Durbin, Maxfield, Herrmann).

Friday: Seneca Valley at Shaler