Dowagiac facing trap game
Published 9:03 pm Thursday, February 9, 2012
Dowagiac’s Dontel Highsmith continues to lead the area in scoring at over 32 points per game. The Chieftains hit the road tonight to take on Three Rivers. (Daily News Photo/File)
The Dowagiac boys basketball team is facing a classic trap game tonight as it travels to Three Rivers to face the Wildcats.
Three Rivers is the last hurdle before the Chieftains get a rematch with Wolverine Conference leader Otsego Tuesday night.
Dowagiac coach Danum Hunt is well aware of what is at stake next week. He also knows that if his squad doesn’t focus on the Wildcats tonight, next week’s showdown will be meaningless.
“We will go over there (Three Rivers) and have a track meet,” he said. “We will see who comes out on top. Our motto is every day we work to be better than we were yesterday. Tomorrow (Friday) is a workday. We have to go out and play four consistent quarters of basketball. We are not looking past Three Rivers because when you do that bad things happen.”
The Chieftains (11-3, 9-1 Wolverine) know that the Wildcats will not be pushovers. Dowagiac defeated Three Rivers 62-54 in the first meeting back in January.
The Wildcats (4-10, 4-6 Wolverine) surely have the Chieftains’ attention as they once again played Otsego close Tuesday night, falling 52-45. The Bulldogs defeated Three Rivers 51-45 in the first meeting between the two teams.
“We have to execute and we need to play with intensity for four quarters,” Hunt said. “Tuesday night we played four consistent quarters. We like to be between 17 and 19 points every quarter and we were able to do that against Plainwell.”
Hunt said that since the Allegan game, Dowagiac has been preparing to play Otsego for what he considers the conference title game.
“We played well against Allegan, but then fell apart in the Buchanan game,” he said. “So we went back to work again. We were able to display our hard work again against Plainwell. Hopefully we can be consistent and play 32 minutes and give maximum effort again tomorrow.”
Dowagiac will have two additional players that did not compete in the first meeting between the two squads.
Gavin Taylor and Kyle Solloway are both transfers, who have recently become eligible. Solloway moved away from Dowagiac following seventh grade, but returned to the community in December.
