It was a close game at halftime.

The Chapel Field boys’ basketball team led the Highland Huskies by three points at halftime, lost the lead to start the third, but recovered for a big third quarter in a 69-48 win over the Huskies on Wednesday afternoon at Highland High School.

“We’ve never played this team,” said Jonah McDuffie, who led the Lions with a game-high 24 points. “They played hard. We knew what we were going in for. We have a lot of respect for this team, we’ve been playing well. We just played our game.”

McDuffie’s game worked for him in the first half as he hit four 3-pointers in the first half, but went inside for eight points in the third quarter.

Noah Swart had a big second half and helped fuel the Huskies 25-13 third quarter, with nine of his 18 points coming in the third.

“We were not hitting (early),” Swart said. “Jonah was hitting and that’s about it. Me and Mikey (Bonagura) started to get going in the third quarter. I think that’s what really helped me start hitting shots.”

For most of the season, the Lions’ offense was generated by either McDuffie or Swart, but over the first month of 2023, Bonagura has started to become more of a scoring threat.

He added 15 points. Between the three of them, they scored 57 of the Lions’ 69 points.

“When (Bonagura) has a big game, it’s great,” Swart said. “It takes a little bit of pressure off both of us, and even the whole team. He helps us put up more points on the board and that’s what we need going forward.”

The Lions hope there is a lot ahead of them this season. After reaching the New York State Public High School Athletic Association regional finals last season, the Lions made more of an effort to play bigger schools to better prepare them for the Class D playoffs this year.

The results have been mixed.

They lost to Class A Wallkill (42-37) in their first game of the season, they lost two straight to class C S.S. Seward (66-52) and Class A New Paltz (81-53). They had a return engagement with the Spartans on January 20, a game the Lions won, 65-47.

“It was good for us to see a really good team like that,” Chapel Field coach Brad McDuffie said. “We lost (to New Paltz) by a bunch but the game itself was a kind of confidence builder because in the second half, we played them better.”

Meanwhile, they’re taking care of their business in Class D with an unbeaten record through Thursday.

The Huskies are a Class B team, and even though they struggled for most of this season, they pushed the Lions in the first half. These games provide them a taste of what they may see in the postseason.

The Lions went back into Class D on Thursday when they finished the week with a 76-23 win over the Eldred Yellow Jackets before resuming their non-league schedule against Class B teams Fallsburg and James I. O’Neill in the upcoming week.

“These games are against teams that are bigger and they’re better players,” Swart said. “That’s what we’re going to face in the postseason and I think, our going down a little bit and then coming back up is what we need.”