BRIDGE CITY — The Bridge City Cardinals fought tough with the East Chambers Buccaneers for three quarters but they simply ran out of gas and coughed up the ball too much at Cardinal Gym Tuesday night.

The Bucs forced the Cardinals into 43 turnovers on the night and closed out the contest with a 22-6 fourth quarter spurt to topple Bridge City 59-40.

The Cardinals (0-3) got as close as 37-34 at the end of the third quarter on a nice Caleb Honeycutt at the end of the period, but East Chambers answered with a flurry in the fourth.

East Chambers post Kam Smith scored nine of his 10 points in the final stanza to lead the surge.

It was the first game of the season for the Bucs (1-0), who had their full array of players for the first time Monday after the football team wrapped up their season in the second round of the playoffs last week.

The Cardinals led after the first quarter 9-6 as the Bucs showed plenty of rust early on.

However, East Chambers forward Kordell David took over in the second quarter as he capitalized on steals and nice inside moves to the basket to score 16 of his-game-high 21 points in the quarter. That ignited a 22-12 run by the Bucs in the period as they went into intermission with a 28-21 edge. Guard Max Baker hit a pair of three-pointers to keep the Cardinals in it in the quarter.

Guard Chason Burch, who led the Cardinals with eight points on the night, scored three big baskets in the third quarter. Burch converted a layup with 4:04 in the third quarter to pull the Cardinals back to within 32-30.

However, turnovers proved way too costly for the Cardinals has they had 10 turnovers in the first quarter, 11 in the second, 11 in the third and 11 in the fourth.

Nathan Singh contributed 10 points and five rebounds for the East Chambers attack. Guard Ernest Ceasar had eight points while Smith finished with six rebounds and David added five.

The Cardinals finished with a 36-30 rebounding edge.

Cardinal post Hunter Wiegreffe tallied five points and hauled down a game-high 13 rebounds. Kolten Weeks contributed six points and seven rebounds. Baker finished with six points while Honeycutt snared five boards.

The Bucs finished with 18 turnovers and went 9-of-16 from the free-throw line. The Cardinals were 5-of-11 from the line.

The Cardinals will look to bounce back Thursday through Saturday when they compete in the Nederland Tournament,

The Cardinals will play Vidor at noon Thursday and will take on Port Neches-Groves at 1:30 p.m. Friday.