Dixie Splits Games Opening Weekend

This weekend opens the Boys Varsity Basketball season and Dixie played in the Tip Off Tournament hosted by TVS.  Their first round game was against the eventual winner of the tournament – Stivers. Dixie got off to a slow start against the Tigers – only scoring 11 points in the first half.  But thanks to a late rally in the 4^th quarter they came back, but ran out of time as they fell 55-48.

So Saturday night the Greyhounds faced off against the Eaton Eagles – part of the big school division of the SWBL.  Eaton had fallen the previous night to South.  It quickly became evident that Dixie wanted to redeem themselves for their loss.  One had the sense that it would be a long night for Eaton when their point guard double dribbled the ball 5 seconds into the game. Although Eaton had an overall team height advantage, Dixie was able to counter that with an aggressive defense and spot on outside shooting.

In the first half Dixie connected on 8 treys to get the lead.  Eaton tried both man to man and 1-2-2 zone to get pressure on the wings.  But Dixie was too quick to keep covered for long. Dixie played a zone, but would mix in some trapping to keep Eaton off balance.  And Dixie was able to get turnovers from their defensive pressure.  They doubled up Eaton by halftime 33-16, shrugged off an attempt by Eaton to press coming out in the 3^rd quarter and cruised to an easy 60-35 win.

Blake Miller made the all-tournament team with his performance – leading his team in scoring with 21 points Friday and 26 points Saturday. Scoring against Eaton: Rutledge 4, Grubb 7, Leonard 9, Simpson 4, Hale 3, Gengler 3, Arnett 4.

“Overall I thought we shot the ball pretty well,” stated Coach Williams after the game, “We don’t have a lot of guys big inside, so we are going to have to take a lot of outside shots. I thought defensively we did pretty well.  Now I thought we had too many turnovers as a team.  We’re going to be better, but it’s going to be a process to get where we need to be.  But defensively we were able to steal the ball and get the job done.”

Defensive Rebounding: “Our goal is to try and limit any team to just one shot. And everyone has to box out and go get a rebound.  Even against Stivers with their big size, I thought that we did a good job of limiting them to one shot most times.  We already understand that if we give them second and third shots that it is going to be a long night for us."

Stivers, “They got up on us early, but we did not quit. We got the game back to a manageable situation. But we lost some opportunities to get even closer - we missed some key shots.  Blake Miller played well for us and Justin Leonard played unbelievably well – he gave us a double – double. We were able to make it a game and challenge them.”

Next week Dixie has two big games on their schedule as they host Waynesville on Friday and then rival Brookville on Saturday.