Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Each game night, Josh Money is seeing more positive signs from Polk County’s boys basketball team.

Those indicators aren’t necessarily translating to victories. But even on occasions such as Wednesday’s 73-56 loss to Brevard, Money is finding points on which to continue his effort to build the Wolverine program into a winning one.

Among those Wednesday was the play of the team’s lone senior, Jayce Edwards, and junior Khalil Austin, who each scored 10 points in the Mountain Foothills 7 Conference home matchup.

“Jayce and Khalil, they played their tails off,” Money said. “They were coming to me sometimes and it wasn’t, Coach, I need one (a break). It was Coach, I have to haveone. They were getting after it on the defensive side.

“When you lose two players with the ability of Khristian (Littlejohn) and Gunnar (Alm), that really hurts. We had some young guys, Ross (Dow), Luke (Garrison) and Nate (Fagan), they stepped up in a big way to help us out with some numbers. And I thought some of our big men started progressing. David Duffy and Chase Stansbury really stepped up tonight. We showed good things, but we have a lot to work on.”

Polk County (3-12, 1-5) missed Alm, sidelined by an injury, and Littlejohn, out for a game due to an incident in last week’s loss to East Rutherford. That led to moments Wednesday when Polk had three freshmen on the court, those occurring as early as the midpoint of the first quarter.

Brevard (5-6, 3-2) took advantage of the first such spell, turning an 8-4 lead midway through the first quarter into a 16-5 advantage by the end of the period. The Wolverines got the deficit back to single digits early in the second quarter on baskets by Aaron Jackson and Edwards, but the Blue Devils quickly pushed the edge back into double digits and kept it there the rest of the evening.

Jackson led all scorers with 26 points, with Stansbury scoring six. Duffy added two points, with Garrison and Dallas Littlejohn each scoring one.

Khristian Littlejohn is expected to return to the lineup Friday as Polk County travels to Patton to kick off the second half of its conference schedule.