Alex McKinley is an ASU Cronkite School of Journalism student assigned to cover Marcos de Niza High School for AZPreps365.com

TEMPE – The Marcos de Niza Padres shouldered their first loss of the season on Monday against the McClintock Chargers by a score of 85-58. Charger small forward Jaylen Wesley dominated the hardwood, pouring in 29 points.

The Padres played a sloppy game. They committed turnovers, missed shots and yielded offensive rebound after offensive rebound, none of which are characteristics of a winning basketball team. During last week's preseason tournament, the undersized Padres finished 4-0, relying heavily on their speed on defense. The Chargers, though, were able to exploit the size mismatch.

Wesley, who’s listed at 6'4", and his teammate, Desean Strong, 6'6", proved to be too much for the Padres to handle, scoring many of their points after securing offensive rebounds and pounding the ball into the paint.

This issue was obvious for the Padres in the first half. They tried their best to slow down McClintock but yielded few positive results. They entered halftime down by 30 points, 52-22.

The second half was much of the same. The size and athleticism of the Chargers shut the Padres (0-1) down completely and made them work for every single basket they scored despite their sizable lead. That, however, didn't stop MdN's Tony Motolla.  “A lot of my baskets were off rebounds or second chance points,” said Motolla, who scored 19 points for the Padres.  “But I got most of my baskets coming off of screens.”Tony Motolla tries to finish the reverse layup on the fast break (Alex Mckinley/AZPreps365)

Motolla turned up his scoring in the second half, where he scored 14 of his 19 points, but it wasn't enough to bring MdN much closer. The Chargers continued to pick apart the Padres' defense. They moved the ball around, crashed the offensive glass, and played lockdown defense on the other end. All of this made it nearly impossible for the Padres to close the gap—but that didn't mean they were going to stop trying.

In between quarters, Padre head coach David Stark could be heard trying to motivate his team to keep pushing and to keep playing hard regardless of the score. He told his team to go out there and play the last quarter as if it were a new game and they did not disappoint.

The fourth quarter started out with a missed shot from the Chargers leading to a wide open layup from Padre point guard Jamaal Young. Outscoring the Chargers 21-13 in the quarter, the Padres put up their best fight but the deficit was too much to overcome.

After the final buzzer sounded, Young wasted no time getting to work. The Padre guard could be seen practicing his free throws alone in the empty gym following the loss. Young and the rest of the Padres have two more practices in the coming days to prepare for their next matchup against the Tempe Buffaloes. There is work to be done if they want to prevent performances like this from happening in the future. But with a work ethic such as Young's, they may be on their way.