By TOM NYHUIS
Dowagiac Daily News

BUCHANAN – The 2010 Michigan District Basketball Tournament kicked off Monday night and for the Class B games hosted by Buchanan two of the local favorites saw their season come to an end.

In the opening contest it was St. Joseph outlasting Dowagiac 66-58 and in the second game of the night it was Berrien Springs knocking off the host Buchanan Bucks by the score of 48-27.

Both winning teams will now get ready for action on Wednesday as the Bears will face arch rival Lakeshore at 5:30 p.m. and Berrien Springs will match up against another Lakeland Conference foe, Edwardsburg, with that game scheduled for an 8 p.m. start at Buchanan High School.

The two winners will then meet on Friday at 7 p.m. for the district title.

St. Joseph…66
Dowagiac…58
Dowagiac jumped out to an early 15-6 lead five minutes into the game as the Chieftains came out hitting on all cylinders to open the Class B district games at Buchanan Wednesday night.

Dontel Highsmith scored eight of his team-high 30 points in the opening quarter, but it was St. Joseph’s senior David Brennan keeping pace with the freshman from Dowagiac, hitting six of his game-high 32 points in the opening eight minutes.

Trailing 17-8 late in the quarter, the Bears rolled off an 8-0 run in the final two minutes to end the quarter down by just one point 17-16.

The Chieftains once again took control of the game and forged out to a 27-20 lead midway through the second period with Highsmith adding another six points in a 10-4 run.

A rally by the Bears in the final four minutes of the first half cut back into the Chieftain lead and they trailed by just one at the intermission 32-31 as Brennan dumped in nine points in the quarter.

In the first half the Bears stuck to a man-to-man defense. In the second half Bears coach Greg Blomgren switched up his defense moving into a zone which looked to give his former team difficulties.

“It wasn’t the zone that took us out of anything,” Dowagiac coach Danum Hunt said of the Bears defensive pressure. “We stopped being aggressive. Towards the end of the fourth quarter the kids decided to get aggressive again. We have gone over this in practice that just as long as were are aggressive even if it is zone or man we are good. We just kind of went to sleep a little bit there in the third quarter and early in the fourth. We stopped being aggressive and stopped attacking the zone and when that happened we were not getting a lot done offensively.”

After Jason Turner knocked down an early 3-pointer to push the Chieftains lead to four, it was time for the sleeping Bears to wake up as they went on a 20-4 run to finish out the third quarter holding a commanding 51-39 lead on the heels of Brennan, who hammered home 12 points in the eight minute stretch.

In the fourth Sean Guinane scored six of his 14 points in the first minute to stretch the Bears lead to 18 (57-39) before Highsmith could stop the bleeding two minutes into the final quarter.

Down 19 with 3:49 to play, Dowagiac was not ready to roll over. In the next two minutes the Chieftains cut the lead to eight with Highsmith hitting 5-of-6 from the free throw line and a trey, while Andrew Cripe added a bucket and a long bomb from outside the arch cutting into the Bears’ cushion (64-56) with 52 seconds remaining. But it was too little to late for Dowagiac as the Bears survived to move on to Wednesday nights semifinal game against Lakeshore.

DOWAGIAC 58
Dontel Highsmith 9 10-12 30, Troy Butcher 0 0-0 0, Andrew Cripe 2 0-0 5, Jason Turner 2 0-0 5, Chris Craft 1 0-0 2, Tremail Buthcer 1 0-0 3, Darius Wilson 1 4-4 6, Damone Huff 3 0-0 7, Cody Cox 0 0-0 0, Pierre Reed 0 0-0 0, Tyler Clark 0 0-0 0, D.J. Hunt 0 0-0 0. TOTALS: 19 14-16 58
ST. JOSEPH 66
Nicholas Piggee 1 1-4 3, Jeremy Rush 1 2-2 4, Joshua Schaffer 1 0-0 2, Joshua Akins 0 0-0 0, DeVonte Jones 4 0-0 9, David Brennan 10 10-12 32, Sean Guinane 4 6-9 14, Matthew Riemland 1 0-0 2. Totals 22 19-27 66

Dowagiac 17 32 39 58
St. Joseph 16 31 51 66
3-point goals: Dowagiac 6 (Highsmith 2, Cripe 1, Turner 1, Tremail Butcher 1, Huff 1) St. Joseph 3 (Brennan 2, Jones 1). Team fouls: Dowagiac 21, St. Joseph 13. Fouled out: Wilson (D). Varsity records: Dowagiac 5-16, St. Joseph 11-10

Berrien Springs…48
Buchanan…27
The inability to get the ball in the basket proved to be the beginning of the end for the Buchanan Bucks Monday night. Buchanan shot a miserable 25 percent for the night leading to the end of its season in which the team finished at 12-9.

“We just couldn’t get the basketball to go into the hole,” Buchanan coach Reid McBeth said after the season ending loss. “We played three quarters of pretty good defense. We accomplished a lot of things that we wanted to accomplish which was to force some of their other guys to make three point shots and unfortunately some of their guys hit from the outside better than we do and we are shooting in our own gym.”

The Shamrocks stepped behind the line and buried seven, with Jeffrey Gumbo having three.

“Those three’s by (Gumbo) are the ones what killed us,” McBeth said. Buchanan’s Daniel Blackwell had all three of the Bucks 3-pointers in the game. “You’re not going to beat to many people by scoring 27 points,” McBeth stated. “That has been our problem all year, we sometimes struggle to put the ball in the basket.”

Blackwell paced the Bucks with 13 and Jalen Brown added seven.

The Shamrocks were led by Gumbo’s 19 and Matt Little dropping in nine.

After holding a 4-2 lead half way through the first quarter Little connected on a trey to give the Shamrocks their first lead on the night and one they would not relinquish the rest of the way. Blackwell knotted the game at seven with  50 seconds to play in the opening quarter but a Steven Felusme 3-pointer with 35 ticks remaining lifted the Shamrocks to a 10-7 first quarter advantage.

Neither offense could get much going in the second quarter with Berrien heading into the locker room with a 20-13 lead.

The Shamrocks spread the advantage to 10 midway through the third period 27-17.

Buchanan cut the lead to five, 27-22, on a basket by Brown and a three pointer by Blackwell with 50 seconds remaining in the third quarter. Gumbo nailed a 3-point bucket with eight seconds remaining to head into the final quarter with an eight-point lead.

In the fourth the Shamrocks got the hot hand as they rattled off 11 unanswered points to put the game on ice 41-22.

“We tried to mix and match our zone and our man as much as we could,” Berrien Springs coach Steve Spenner said. “I thought we weren’t bad on defense and we played with good effort. We had trouble with 33 (Brown) there for a while and that is why we went to the 1-3-1. Offensively we hit some big shots. I would say we weren’t clean by any means. We just didn’t get guys in the right position and when we did Gumbo is a good three point shooter, he’s capable of making those shots.”

The Bucks did hold a 32-27 advantage on the boards with Brown pulling in seven rebounds for the Bucks, and Gumbo also finished the night with seven for the Shamrocks.

Berrien Springs advances to Wednesday’s second semifinal game of the night when they will face Edwardsburg.

BUCHANAN 27
Spencer Anglero 0 0-0 0, Dylan Arnold 1 0-0 2, Richie Reed 0 0-0 0, Bryan Kuntz 0 0-2 0, Andrew Hearington 0 0-0 0, Dane Cauffman 0 0-0 0, Daniel Blackwell 5 0-0 13, Ryan Catalano 0 1-2 1, Jalen Brown 3 1-1 7, 1 0-0 2, Marquis Tyler 1 0-0 2, Iziah Dorsey 0 0-0 0. Totals 11 2-3 27
BERRIEN SPRINGS 48
Matt Little 2 4-4 9, Nolan O’Brien 0 0-0 0, Deontae Scott 0 0-0 0, Anthony Johnson 0 0-0 0, Tyrice Carter 2 0-0 4, Mark Westendorp 0 0-0 0, Jared McCarver 0 0-0 0, Steven Felusme 2 0-0 5, Oluwaseunt Idowu 2 0-0 5, Jonathan Shembarger 2 1-1 6, Jeffery Gumbo 7 2-2 19. Totals 17 7-7 48

Berrien 10 20 30 48
Buchanan 7 13 22 27
3-point goals: Buchanan 3 (Blackwell 3) Berrien Springs 7 (Gumbo 3, Shembarger 1, Idowu 1, Felusme 1, Little 1). Team fouls: Buchanan 12, Berrien Springs 9. Fouled out: None. Technical Fouls: Buchanan (bench). Varsity records: Buchanan 12-9 Berrien Springs 17-3