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Sixteenth seeded Dixie faced off against the number one seed
Chaminade-Julienne in tournament play at the University of Dayton Arena. To get
there, Dixie upset a number ten seeded Dayton Christian 70-65 in their opening
round game. While Chaminade-Julienne had two lopsided victories to their
credit, beating NorthEastern 77-21, and Greenview 63-28. So the battle tested Greater Catholic League Eagles
had some major momentum coming into the game.
But any hopes that the Eagles may have had of making easy
work of the Grey Hounds were quickly thrown aside. They opened with a 1-3-1 zone which Dixie was
able to figure out and get points against. Dixie started with a man to man
defense and went to the press later in the quarter. They were down by 7 at the end of the opening
quarter 19-12.
Back on the court Dixie went on a little run and closed the
gap. This caused the Eagles to call a
time out to sort things out. The Eagles
were in a man to man zone, and Dixie countered with an offense where they
slashed to the basket for layups from the perimeter. The Eagles had been hot in the first quarter
and now they had cooled. Meanwhile Dixie
pulled ahead and led briefly at the midpoint of the quarter. The Eagles were able to regain the lead and
got some points off of turnovers – sinking a couple of shots to close the half
with a 31-23 lead.
The chess match between the two coaches continued into the
second half as Dixie came out in a 1-3-1 defense. Slowly Dixie clawed back and closed the
deficit, pulling to within 3 points. But
the hard scrabble defense that the Hounds were playing came at a cost as two of
their starters began to get into foul trouble.
It was a 3 point game with a
little over 6 minutes left in the contest.
But in the stretch run, the Eagles were able to pull ahead and when post player Seth Benner,
who had been a defense force in the paint, fouled out with a minute and and a
half left, the Hounds had no one to
counter the Eagles height and they pulled away for a 70-57 win.
But it was a lot closer game than that final score would
indicate. Joe Staley said afterwards,”When
I saw them before tonight, they were getting good looks from their motion
offense, I knew that they could give us trouble. It’s not always easy to beat the teams that
you are supposed to beat, they gave us their best game.”
Coach Williams had this to say, “I am proud of the way this
team played in this tournament. We
played some of our best basketball at the end of the season. The five seniors really contributed this
season – we will miss them. They have had 3 coaches in 3 years and have had
some adjustments to make. But the team
showed that they can play the type of basketball that we are trying to teach
them to play. This past summer it was tough to get everybody together because
of the way that things worked out. But I
am looking forward to working hard with this team this off season. “
Scoring for Dixie: Fisher 4, Pietrzek 2, Moore 16, Benner
14, Watts 10, Grubb 2, Mintz 6, Leonard 3.
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