Staff photo / Neel Madhavan Warren G. Harding’s Myles Miller, center, spins out of a double team in the post on Friday night against Chaney in Warren.

WARREN — Warren G. Harding had all the looks of a team playing its first game of the season. Chaney, on the other hand, played like it was in midseason form.

The Cowboys relied on their defense on Friday night, holding off a Raiders team with high preseason aspirations 48-39 in Warren.

“You never want to lose, right?” Harding coach Keelyn Franklin said. “But to get punched in the mouth in the first game when you’re looking to be a premier team in the area, and possibly the state, it will reveal what type of team we have.”

Chaney jumped on the Raiders right from the opening tip. The Cowboys got stops and turned those into easy baskets in transition.

Harding scored just 13 points in the first half, as Chaney built a 14-point lead at the break thanks to the play of guards Asuante Mickel and Austin Brown.

“We wanted to pressure their guards — their guards are kind of young — but we wanted to get up in their guards and make it tough for them,” Chaney coach Marlon McGaughy said. “They got a lot of good shooting, so you gotta make it hard for them to pass.”

The Raiders struggled from the floor, shooting just 26.1% overall, while the Cowboys shot 50% as three players finished in double figures, including Brown with 13 points, Mickel with 12 points and Allex Hill with 10 points.

After trailing 27-13 at halftime, Harding mounted a charge in the third quarter. Xavier Clark scored eight of his 13 points, while Myles Miller scored eight of his 15 points for the Raiders during the period.

Harding opened the second half on a 14-5 run and eventually cut Chaney’s lead down to one, 34-33, with a couple minutes left in the third quarter.

“I thought we showed a lot of toughness, a lot of grittiness in that third quarter. If we can bottle that up moving forward, I think we’ll be fine,” Franklin said. “I thought we came out a lot more focused. I thought we came out with more urgency. I think it was like, ‘If we don’t lock in, we’re going to get blown out.’ Then obviously, when you make some shots and you’re successful on the offensive end, you tend to play a little harder defensively.”

But Chaney ended the quarter on a 6-0 run with three straight baskets from Brown to push its lead back to 40-33 heading into the fourth.

“I think our players gotta trust the process. We’re built for this,” McGaughy said. “We go up and down and we really run all day, every day. So I think our conditioning really came into play. I think they got kind of tired at the end.”

In the fourth quarter, Chaney closed things out to improve to 2-0 to begin the season.

“This was really important,” McGaughy said. “Our first half of the season is really tough. We got another tough game (Saturday) against Alliance. So we’re prepared for it.”

Despite the season-opening loss, Franklin isn’t worried about his Raiders team.

“Our practice habits have to improve, and that’s on me as head coach to make sure that I’m demanding a certain energy, effort and focus,” Franklin said. “I’ll do my part and we’ll be fine moving forward. I told the guys, this will be something we look back on in a month and be like, ‘Yeah, maybe we needed that.’ We’ll turn this around. It’s one game. I trust in my staff, and I trust in the guys we have. We’re just going to keep plugging away.”