Bucs lose by 5 at Dakota College Bottineau
Dawson loses 87-92
The Dawson Community College Buccaneers were gunning for their third straight victory overall and 2nd straight on the road, but fell short, losing 92-87 to the Dakota College Bottineau Lumberjacks.
It was a game of runs with the home team getting off to an early lead 16-8, buoyed by 5 turnovers from Dawson in the first five minutes, but the Bucs started handling the ball better and came storming back with a 20-2 run to take a 29-19 lead. Within a few minutes, the home team went on a 9-0 run with the help of 3 three-pointers by leading scorer Terrell Alfred, so Dawson went into the intermission clinging to a 42-41 lead. Point guard Deylon Hunt had a big first half for the Lumberjacks scoring 15 points. Dawson shot 54% from the three-point line in the first half, but only 42% from the free-throw line. When they did miss, the Bucs were able to get 8 offensive rebounds and score 11 second chance points.
Dakota College started the second half strong by forcing turnovers and scoring the first 8 points. The Bucs had one of their best shooting games of the year hitting 50% of their field goals and 50% from the free-throw line. Their good shooting kept them in the game, but Bottineau still managed to build a 12 point lead in the closing minutes 82-70 as Terrell Alfred scored 16 more points in the 2nd half, including 4 more three-pointers. Dawson kept attacking though and kept the pressure on closing the gap to only 3 points with less than a minute to go with a three-point play by Brendon Chevannes, but the home team made a few free-throws to stave off the rally. The final score was 92-87.
Terrell Alfred finished with 25 points and Thomas Collins had 22 points for Dakota College. Five Dawson players finished in double figures, led by Daniel Shedden’s 21. Chevannes and Gavin McPherson both had 15 points. Kolton Wall contributed 11 points and 8 rebounds while Stefan Stubbs 10 points and 9 rebounds. In the end, it was 21 turnovers and 52% shooting from the line that did in the Bucs.
DCC Coach Joe Peterson had this to say, “It was a tough loss for us because we did so many good things on the court. We were getting good shots and shooting a good percentage, but we just gave the ball away too many times for no reason. And we have good free-throw shooters, but it seems like some nights everyone makes them and other nights everyone misses them. We have to be mentally tough enough to put the past behind us and step up each time with confidence and knock them in. We have proven we can play with anyone in the league anywhere so we just want to keep improving and be ready to make a deep run in the Regional Tournament.”
The Bucs play their last regular season home game on Monday night in a non-conference contest against Miles Community College before closing out the regular season at Bismarck State on Thursday. The Region 13 tournament will begin on Sunday, February 26th and the Bucs hope to be hosting the first round game.
