ROCHELLE — The Rochelle Hub varsity basketball team struggled to jump start its offense Monday evening, when the purple and white hosted unbeaten Dixon in nonconference play.

Held to only five points in the first quarter, Rochelle fell into a large hole early and was unable to bounce back, falling 82-47 and suffering a fourth consecutive loss. Cullen Shaner scored a game-high 25 points for the Dukes, while senior Eli Luxton led the Hubs (1-4, 0-1 Interstate 8) with 16 points and six rebounds. Dixon dominated the opening quarter Monday evening, starting the game on a 9-0 run and converting several second-chance shots into field goals.

“Dixon’s really confident right now and they believe they can win,” head coach Tim Thompson said. “We’re wondering whether or not we can even win games. They got a couple of easy buckets and some easy 3-pointers early on and we were coming down and either turning the ball over or going one-and-out on offense… We have to get easy shots early in games and we have to get something going that we can feel confident about so we can go from there.”

The Dukes built their lead with a strong effort on the glass, where Dixon outrebounded Rochelle 39-24 and scored 18 second-chance points to only five for the Hubs. The Dukes also leaned on their stout defense, which forced 16 Rochelle turnovers that led to 22 Dixon points. The Dukes doubled up Rochelle in the first half, taking a 44-22 lead into halftime after a 26-5 first quarter.

“We put ourselves in a position where we were down 26-5 after the first quarter and we had to come out and take chances after that,” Thompson said. “I feel like we’re in great shape right now, but we have to take more chances and if we sit back in a zone down 20 points at half, they’re just going to hold the ball out. We have to scramble in those situations and we had a few guys make shots early in the second half, but they got a lot of run outs on our missed shots.”

Dixon forward Darius Harrington finished with 15 points and five rebounds for the Dukes, who capitalized on their aggressive rebounding and dribble-drive penetration with 56 points in the paint during Monday’s game. Dixon shot 57.1 percent from the floor for the evening, while Rochelle was limited to just 38.3 percent shooting and 38.5 percent from the free-throw line. Dixon held a 68-41 lead entering the fourth quarter, where both teams emptied their benches.

Junior Carson Lewis scored nine points on three made triples for the Hubs, who will continue Interstate 8 Conference action with a road contest against Sycamore on Tuesday evening.