GRAND LAKE — A blistering shooting performance by Landon Langley carried the Iowa Yellow Jackets to a 70-28 win over Bell City Thursday night in the first round of the Grand Lake basketball tournament.

Langley scored 26 points, all in the first half, as the Jackets won their fifth consecutive game to open the season. They will face South Beauregard, a 63-45 winner over Hackberry, in the second round at 5 p.m. today.

Langley scored 14 points in the first quarter, including five in a 14-3 Iowa run to close the quarter. Bell City (3-6) hung around early, trailing by two before Iowa’s run.

Langley drilled four 3-pointers in the first half and scored nine points in a second quarter 17-0 run that put the game out of reach for Iowa.

Iowa head coach Robert Melanson said he likes the way his team is coming together.

“We’re getting our legs under us. We have our football players back,” he said. “We were able to get everyone in and we are playing team ball, unselfish ball. We are distributing the ball and finding who has the hot hand, like Landon did in the first half today. He has a lot of experience and he can shoot it. When he’s on, he’s on.”

The play of big men Luke Guillory, Lucious Guillory and Andrew Duhon are an early season focus for Melanson. The trio combined for 10 points in the win against Bell City.

“I want to get everyone in the game and continue working our bigs,” Melanson said. “Right now we can’t play two of the three at the same time, but we can keep rotating them in and out.”

Michael Lang led Bell City with 13 points, 10 of which came in the first half.

Girls

Midland. . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Iowa. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

The Rebels outscored the Yellow Jackets 18-4 in the second quarter to take control of the opening game of the round-robin tournament.

The score was tied 9-9 after the first quarter and again at 11-11 early in the second quarter, but the Rebels closed the first half by scoring eight consecutive points to build a 14-point lead.

Gracie Miller scored six of the eight points, jump-starting the outburst with a put-back basket after an offensive rebound. She finished with a game-high 26 points.

Kamylle Jones led Iowa with 17 points, including all nine Jackets points in the first quarter.