Hounds Hammer Arrows

"We played 4 good quarters of basketball for the first time all season," stated Coach Williams after the game. Dixie used an inside/outside game that Shawnee could not defend for long.  Dixie got an early lead, gave it up briefly in the second quarter, but had a strong second half to put Shawnee away 62-43. Shawnee threw all the defenses they could at Dixie in the second half, but Dixie hit clutch shots all night long in the Dog Pound.  At the end of the night Dixie was on top 62-43.

Coming into the game, it appeared that Shawnee would be the team with the momentum.  They are in the middle of the pack in the SWBL and were coming off of a win over second place Carlisle – which gave Carlisle just their second loss this season. Meanwhile Dixie had gotten shelled by league leading Northridge 79-45 on their home court.  So Shawnee had to feel good coming into the game.

But the Hounds have short memories.  Using a zone to box in Arrow post player Thomas Buell and hitting their outside shots, Dixie got an early lead as the game started.  But the Arrows adjusted – hitting some outside shots and causing Dixie to switch to a man to man defense and also doing some half court trapping to get some turnovers and throw Dixie’s offense off rhythm.  Shawnee’s Toby Williams hit a 3 with 22 seconds left in the quarter to knot the game up at 11 all.

And for a period it seemed like Dixie was just going to camp on the perimeter and try to fire up 3’s all night.  But coach Williams told the team during that first break that needed to get the ball inside and challenged post player Cody Grubb to get the inside game going.  Shawnee got the lead early in the 2^nd quarter, but with Dixie’s refocused offense having effect on the inside and some half court trapping on defense, Dixie regained the lead.  Shawnee simply was not getting many open shots as the Dixie defense stepped up.

Down by 6 points at halftime, Shawnee doubled down on defense in the second half.  Trying about every defensive alignment in their play book. Zone, man to man, half court trap and finally in the last quarter they did some full court pressing.  Dixie fans did have to get a little uncomfortable when Shawnee scored the first 2 baskets of the last quarter.  But Dixie calmly settled into their groove and went on a 10-2 run of their own to again put the lead at double digits.  Cody Grubb did get his 4^th foul midway through the final quarter, however by that time Dixie had a healthy 15 point lead.  

Cody Grubb had a great game – scoring only one basket in the first quarter, but going on to score 24 more points in the final 3 quarters to lead all scorers. Freshman Devin Worley netted 13 points. Justin Leonard 6, Shane Hale 2, Blain Miller 10, Joe Gengler 2, Justin Kiernes 2.

An upbeat Coach Williams commented after the game, “I feel relieved, we defended really well today. We played well for all 4 quarters. Usually in a game we have a good quarter, then a bad quarter, but today we were focused for all 4 quarters.”

Cody Grubbs: “I told them that this game has to go from the inside – out. We need to attack their bigs, we need to get some jump shots, we need to drive inside and get some layups.  If we can do that, it will open up our 3 point shooting.  At one point I thought we were just going to settle for 3’s - settle outside and shoot. But we were able to attack the inside and I think they saw how it opened things up.”

Devin Worley, “He is a freshman and he is just starting his 4^th game.  But every game he has been playing very well.  He is understanding the game better and is not turning the ball over as much.  As a team we can shoot the ball.  A lot of it is when we take our shots, and sometime our shots are rushed. Today I thought that he and everyone else did a great job getting that extra pass and getting off open shots.”