Dowagiac advances to semifinals
Published 11:29 pm Monday, March 7, 2011
Pesky St. Joseph gave host Dowagiac all it wanted Monday night in the Class B District Tournament opener before falling to the Chieftains 70-59.
Dowagiac’s Darius Wilson put a thunderous exclamation on that victory with a dunk over St. Joseph’s Josh Akins with 8.5 seconds remaining.
The Chieftains (15-6) had put the game away just a bit earlier in the quarter after the Bears (4-17) had cut Dowagiac’s double-digit advantage to 55-50 with just under three minutes to play on a basket by Jalen Holmes.
Any last-second comeback St. Joseph was planning disappeared when Jason Turner on th ensuing trip down the floor buried a 3-pointer with 2:44 to play to extend the lead back to eight points.
Dowagiac’s advantage remainded between eight and 10 points over the closing minutes of the contest as the Chieftains were 5-of-5 at the free throw line in the final 1:55.
Wilson scored and was fouled after grabbing an offensive rebound off a missed free throw and Tremail Butcher was a perfect 4-of-4 to keep the Chieftains comfortably in front.
St. Joseph, which has battled teams all year despite a lack of size, weather a fast start by Dowagiac, which got out to an 8-2 lead behind the play of Wilson.
The 6-foot-4 center was the main option of the Chieftains early on according to Dowagiac coach Danum Hunt.
“That was the game plan from the start,” he said. “We were going to pound the post as much as we could. I expected them to double team and triple team the post. I worked with (Greg) Blomgren for seven years and when it comes to junk defenses and putting together gimmick defenses he’s really good, so we kind of anticipated that. So we kind of tweaked our offennse a little bit so that we could still get the ball to the post and try to play inside out.”
The Bears came right back, a sign of things to come for the remainder of the contest.
St. Joseph kept cutting into each Chieftain advantage, but Dowagiac made a little run at the end of the period to take a 17-12 lead into the second quarter.
Not much changed in the second stanza. Dowagiac got off to a quick start, leading 20-12 on a basket by D.J. Hunt, and the Bears came back and kept the game tight.
However, this time, the little run the Chieftains would make to end the first half was a bit more substanial.
Leading by nine points with 54 ticks left on the second quarter clock, Dowagiac outscored St. Joseph 6-2 on back-to-back 3-pointers by Troy and Tremail Butcher.
Dowagiac would take a 13-point advantage into halftime (33-20), but they had hardly put the Bears away.
Both teams scored 13 points in the third quarter leaving the Chieftains with a 53-40 advantage and one quarter left to go.
St. Joseph would get the lead down to 39-32 midway through the period, but after being outscored 14-8 the rest of the quarter, including four points in the span of 24 seconds, the Bears had gained no ground.
It would be a different story in the final eight minutes.
St. Joseph kept whittling away at the Chieftains lead, finally shrinking it down to five.
Dowagiac, as it did in the previous three quarters, had the answers once again and was able to advance to Wednesday’s semifinals where it will face Edwardsburg at 7:30 p.m.
“Every time we made plays and got it down to single digits, it seemed like they would hit a couple buckets to get it back up to double digits,” Blomgren said. “I just couldn’t be more proud of our kids. What you saw tonight is the way this team played all year at a 4-17 record.”
Wilson led Dowagiac with 21 points, while Dontel Highsmith and Tremail Butcher each added 15 points. Turner finished with 10 points.
St. Joseph was led by Rush with 15 and Holmes wtih 13.
ST. JOSEPH 59
Justin Woodley 0 0-0 0; Jeremy Rush 5 3-6 15; Cody Mahler 0 0-0 0; Josh Akins 2 3-5 7; Josh Schaffer 2 3-6 8; Joel Bergman 0 0-0 0; Austin Sheskey 4 6-6 16; Jalen Homes 5 2-2 13. TOTALS: 18 17-25 59
DOWAGIAC 70
Dontel Highsmith 3 9-12 15; Troy Butcher 2 0-0 5; Darius Wilson 9 3-5 21; Jason Turner 2 4-6 10; Chris Craft 0 0-1 0; Tremail Butcher 4 4-4 15; D.J. Hunt 1 0-0 2; Eric Charles 1 0-2 2. TOTALS 22 20-30 70
St. Joseph 12 20 40 59
Dowagiac 17 33 53 70
3-point baskets: St. Joseph 6 (Rush 2, Schaffer, Sheskey 2, Holmes), Dowagiac 6 (Troy Butcher, Turner 2, Tremail Butcher 3). Total fouls: St. Joseph 22, Dowagiac 19. Fouled out: Akins (SJ). Varsity records: St. Joseph 4-17, Dowagiac 15-6