The Washington Demon basketball teams dropped their conference games last night.

In the girls’ game, Washington’s offense continued to seem out of sorts, shooting the ball from three-point range but nothing landing and not being able to stop Caitlin Marshall or Rachel Steffensmeier in the 54-49 loss.

Ft. Madison jumped out to a lead in the first quarter, and held on to it for the game. The Demons tried to make a push back in the fourth quarter, getting at close at two, but Washington put the Bloodhounds in the double bonus early in the half, and a couple of fouls here and there made the lead seven, and Washington could not come back.

Stephanie Fishback had her season high with 17 points to lead the Demons, while Grace Redlinger came in with 10, and Dema Giardino had seven.

Washington is now theoretically out of the conference race with three conference losses, and with Keokuk winning last night.

Demon head girls basketball coach Phil Long said that his team had its chances, but they just missed too many shots.

“Since the start of the season, I’ve said that our conference is as even top to bottom as it is going to be, and Ft. Madison takes Mt. Pleasant to overtime Tuesday night, Keokuk only beat them by three earlier in the year, and we’re still trying to find our offensive legs if you will, after that long layoff, and tonight was a shining example [of that].” Long said. “If you see our shot chart, we had a lot of looks four or five feet away, that rolled around and fell out.”

The boys’ game had a good first half, as the Demons trailed 8-2 early in the game to the Bloodhounds, but came back and played tough, going into the halftime break down 32-25, but between the halves was an unusual 20 minute break for the annual cake auction, which cooled off one team, but not the other.

Washington came out of the locker room and looked as though they had just had a long halftime, while Ft. Madison went right back to their stellar offense.

The Demons couldn’t get anything going and fell 76-54.

Washington was led by Thomas Bump with 12, and Gage Redlinger with 11.

Demon head coach Bryce Smiens said they just ran into a really good team.

“We didn’t really need a 20 minute halftime tonight. I thought we played a pretty solid first half, they got up 10-2 on us and then we rallied back and hung in there, but again I just didn’t think we just didn’t play well at the start of the third quarter, got down 15 and then we had to play man-to-man and they are just pretty good,” Smeins said. “They are one of the best teams that we have played this year, and a lot of guys can score, and their point guard is really good. Tip your hat to Ft. Madison, they’re a good basketball team.”

The Demons will gear up back at home to host Tipton tonight.