Steamboat Springs — A bit of a sluggish first half couldn’t slow down Steamboat Springs High School boys basketball as the Sailors opened the Steamboat Shoot-Out with a decisive 67-52 win Thursday night against visiting Roosevelt.

Steamboat raced out to a 15-8 first-quarter lead as Roosevelt missed its first eight shots, but for a Sailors team that lacks some height depth, 6-foot-10 center Garrett Bye’s two fouls put him on the bench, and the lead quickly dissipated.

“He had two, and I felt like in that point of the game, where we were at, we had a decent lead and it just wasn’t worth him picking up a third foul,” Steamboat coach Luke DeWolfe said.

The Roughriders pulled within one score in the final minute of the second quarter, and Steamboat clung to a 26-22 lead heading into the locker room.

Although Steamboat isn’t the tallest team on the floor outside of Bye’s presence under the hoop, the Sailors are much deeper elsewhere than in past seasons, senior Brody King said, and it showed quickly in the third quarter.

King dropped eight of his 13 points in the second half, and Bye dominated the rebounds en route to a 16-point, 11-board performance. Junior X-factor Robi Powers poured in a game-high 17 points and tacked on nine rebounds. King also finished with a game-high six assists.

Filling in for Bye for much of the second quarter and pieces of the second half was Andrew Sabia, who had seven points and three rebounds.

“In past years, we haven’t had a ton of depth, but we had a lot of guys step up and play really well tonight,” King said. “Early on, we just let our defense slip a little bit, and we had to rein it back in a little.”

DeWolfe praised his team’s energy under the hoop on both ends of the court in the final 16 minutes. In all, the Sailors out-rebounded the Roughriders, 37 to 18. Steamboat also overcame a bit of careless ball handling in its 2014-15 home debut, committing 16 turnovers, 10 in the first half.

Steamboat bounced back nicely in cleaner third and fourth quarters, holding Roosevelt’s leading scorers in check for the most part save for some late stat-padding buckets from Orlando Rivera (nine points) and Deaunte Hunt (11 points).

“I thought we made some good adjustments as the game went on, and our players made good individual adjustments through the course of the contest,” DeWolfe said. “I thought we broke things down really well and eventually got the shots we wanted.”

Steamboat will be back on the floor for Day 2 of the Shoot-Out on Friday night. The Sailors will host Northridge out of Greeley for a 7:45 p.m. start.

To reach Ben Ingersoll, call 970-871-4204, email bingersoll@SteamboatToday.com or follow him on Twitter @BenMIngersoll.