South Varsity 2-0 Saturday Night
J. C. Tilton
Both the South Girls and Boys teams came up winners on Saturday night in games over Dixie. But both games were exciting and weren’t decided until the final quarter. It was a day where you could get all the basketball you could eat. Starting with a Dixie - South freshman game, then JV’s and finally varsity’s the two schools squared off all afternoon and battled until the final whistle blew after 9 o’clock that night.
The South girls varsity took an early 13-7 lead. But the Greyhounds doggedly stayed on their heels. South stretched out their lead to 10 points but Dixie closed the gap thanks to a pair of baskets from Kayla Bertke and a pair of free throws from Jessica Leis. This late quarter surge brought Dixie back to within 5 at the half.
Dixie played mainly in a man to man defense, while South used a variety of defenses to keep the Greyhounds off balance. South was being very aggressive on defense and accumulated a surplus of fouls in both halves. This would be a factor late in the game and also showed on the scoreboard as Dixie would go on to score almost a third of their points from free throws.
Dixie made a run at South in the third quarter. They pulled to within one at the 2:29 mark. South needed to regain momentum and got it when Adelee Gates connected on a trey to pull South ahead. South stayed true to form and ended the quarter with 6 fouls to Dixie’s one. A short South team was made even shorter when sophomore Laura Ingram was sent to the bench with 4 fouls.
The last quarter was in the hands of the defense. Both teams turned over the ball but had problems finding the basket. South deliberately ran their offense and tried to use clock. Dixie played aggressive defense and chipped away at the South lead. Laura Ingram would get her 5th foul and would watch the rest of the game from the pine. Dixie closed to within 2 and got their chance with 20 seconds left. They tied up the South offense and got a jump ball. They set up their shot, it hit iron but didn’t drop. Time expired before another attempt could be made. South would win 37-35.
South’s Coach Mabry, “We played well in spurts, we had open shots but they weren’t always dropping for us. We’ve been working on getting the ball inside tonight, but we probably didn’t get in there hardly at all tonight. A win is a win and at this point in the season, I’ll take it.”
Dixie Coach Tom Geglein, “We started out slow. We let Gates hurt us with 10 points and Ingram added 4. We hustled and we had the last second shot. It looked nice, it just didn’t fall. I can’t complain, we played well - if we played like this against Eaton we would have beat them. They have a nice team, Gates is a nice player.”
The boys varsity game followed a similar format. South got the early lead with a 6-0 run. Dixie stayed on their heels. Dixie seemed to have problems with the South zone, but were later able to figure it out and at start scoring. Dixie started in man to man defense, but went to a box and one, placing Nick Worley one on one with South scorer Ryan Innis. Greyhound Tyler Darney made his presence known with three 3 point baskets in the second quarter. South with Innis getting extra attention, balanced their attack with shots landing from the outside as well as scoring in the paint. Dixie made up some ground but was still short 33-26 at the half.
In the third quarter South again peeled off a 6-0 run to start. They applied pressure with a half court trap and made adjustments on offense to open up scoring opportunities. But like their counterparts in the previous game. South accumulated fouls at a faster clip. And their big post player Eric Walker accumulated his third foul early in the third quarter.
The Greyhounds made their run and pulled to within 3 with about 2:54 left in the game. But a foul shot by Jordan Combs followed by a bucket by Eric Walker stretched the lead back out again. South was sure footed on the foul line and extended their lead as Dixie tried in vain during last minute of play. At the final buzzer South would win 67-57.
“It was a frenetic game,” stated coach Augspurger, I thought Dixie’s kids battled hard and scrapped hard. We started off playing well, but I thought we didn’t move in our zone as well as we needed to move and they took advantage of that. They changed the pace of the game with the box and one. Worley did a great job against Ryan [Innis]. But there are other guys who can help offensively and until we start making shots, we are going to be susceptible to this. But this is the type of game up to this point of the season that we have lost. We could have folded and died but we didn’t do that tonight.”