First win for Dixie Girls

The Dixie Greyhounds girls varsity basketball team got their first win of the season this past Saturday. It was part of an ‘All the basketball you can eat’ Saturday where South faced off against Dixie in an all day series of games. As it would turn out, the host teams would have the advantage all day long. Tip off was at 10am at TVS where the 7th grade TVS and Dixie girls squared off. This game was won by South, as was the 8th grade game – although the win did not come easily as the game was decided in overtime. Now the spotlight moved to New Lebanon where the boys and girls JV teams started play in the afternoon with Dixie winning both opening games and worked their way to an evening finale with both varsity teams.

Both girls varsity squads have been struggling this season, Twin Valley South only has 2 wins and Dixie had yet to win a game. But when evenly matched teams play, it can make for an exciting matchup. The TVS girls’ varsity started out strong and kept a lead throughout the first half. Both teams played zone defenses. Offensively, South was able to connect on their outside shots while Dixie got their points in the paint. Although South had the lead, they could not extend it more than 4-6 points as Dixie doggedly stayed on their heels. South went to the locker room with a 23-18 half time lead.

Dixie had made a change to man to man defense and when they came out in the second half they smothered the inside game of South and shutdown the outside shooting. Then they went on a furious scoring run – putting up 13 unanswered points. South took a time timeout when Dixie got their first lead of the night, but to no avail. Dixie Senior Ciera Bates owned the paint as she scored basket after basket in the red zone. South just could not stem the tide. Senior Katie Strazheim finally broke the scoring drought for South, but it was too little, too late as Dixie played like a team on a mission in the third quarter, scoring 22 points – but allowing only 6.

South went to a man to man defense in the last quarter and this slowed the pace of Dixie scoring. But South had 6 fouls already going into the final quarter and they quickly went gave Dixie double bonus. South closed to within 5 points as they made a late run with about a minute and a half left. But that was as close as they would get as Dixie would rally one last time and get their first victory of the season, 54-44.

Dixie head coach Jared Crowe was understandable ecstatic after the game, “Both teams played really hard today. They came out with more intensity than we did. But in the second half we came out like we really wanted it. It has been a tough year, but the girls really wanted the win and it showed tonight. We talked in the locker room at half time and I told the girls that we can win this game if we believe in ourselves. And we had the man to man defense really get out on their shooters – that and getting on it in transition really helped. “

On Ciera Bates, “She has been our goto player all year, she is a senior and is averaging 16 points and 14 rebounds a game. She does everything for us, I don’t know what the team would do without her. I am glad that she had a really great game tonight. Kate Leis had a good game too, she has been struggling with her shot all year and she started hitting shots tonight. Our sophomore point guard had been turning the ball over this year, but showed tonight that she is really maturing.”

Scoring for TVS: Clark 2, Gates 5, Mackie 10, Nushawg 21, Straszheim 4, White 2. Dixie Scoring: Bates 26, Evans 3, Hundley 5, Leis 11, Rader 3, Shope 4, Woodgeard 2.