LINDEN &8212; For a team that lost six seniors off of last year&8217;s group, the Linden High School varsity basketball is doing all right.

The team has gotten off to a 2-0 start, beginning Friday night with a 53-51 nail-biter over Akron and continuing Tuesday night with a dominating 59-32 win over Marengo High School. But as good a win as it was, Patriot head coach Eddie Armstead said the game showed some chinks in the armor of his veteran team made up largely of juniors and seniors that need fixing.

The Patriots&8217; turnovers didn&8217;t hamper the group in the first quarter, where they jumped out to a quick start against Marengo, putting up 24 points to the Panthers&8217; nine. Both groups slowed down in the second period. Marengo held the Linden to only six points, while putting up the seam number.

Linden&8217;s trouble continued in the third quarter. As they managed to put up 20 points, their defense allowed the formerly beat-down Panther offense to put up 17. And again both group went flat in the fourth, as Marengo put up three and Linden hit nine.

On the scoring side of the equation, Linden and Marengo got it done all over the floor and from a lot of contributors. The Patriots recorded points from nine of their 12 players, while the Panthers had contributors from seven of their 11.

The Marengo team didn&8217;t have any players score over six points individually, while Linden&8217;s top scorers Kendarius Goodwill and Lakendrick Rogers put up 13 and 12 each.