DCC to Honor Sophomore Basketball Players at Thursday’s MCC Game
DCC Men’s basketball will be honoring their 10 sophomores before their showdown with Miles Community College on Thursday night. It’s pretty rare for a junior college men’s basketball team to have so many sophomores on their roster. Most programs have, at most, half of their roster made up of sophomores. Usually it is just a handful.
“The most I’ve ever had in the past was seven and that was a large number. I was a little worried coming into the year with so many because sophomores can sometimes be difficult to deal with as they think they know it all and are too worried about what’s next for themselves,” said DCC Coach Joe Peterson.
This group of sophomores has been pretty special! They’ve won 43 games over the past two years with two more games to go in the regular season and the possibility of more in the post-season. That’s the most wins in consecutive years that Dawson has had in a long time. Dawson has also won 13 games in a row and remains undefeated in conference. In November, they won the Mon-Dak Conference Pre-season Tournament. They followed that up by winning the regular season Mon-Dak Conference Championship for only the 2nd time since 1987. Dawson will be hosting the Region XIII Tournament for the first time ever at Dawson on February 27-29.
The Dawson sophomores consist of twins from Idaho (Kayden and Kolten Hitt), three players from Colorado (Devin Collins, Man Man Baker and Camron Dunfee), three players from Montana (Jayce Griffith, CJ Nelson, Beau Santistevan), a Louisianan (Romeo Parker) and a Costa Rican (Jaron Masis). The wins and the championships are impressive, but statistics also tell of their success. Out of 208 NJCAA Division I teams in the country, Dawson is currently 7th in total points, 17th in steals, 20th in offensive rebounding, 25th in 3-pointers made and 37th in assists.
Coach Peterson had a lot to say about this group, “The selflessness and character of this group has been truly exceptional. They have bought into our system and trusted in each other which has taken our program to new heights. Our platooning system of subbing five players at a time in and out is not for everyone. Our guys though stay as active on the bench cheering for their teammates as they do when they are on the court playing. They have set aside minutes, shots and scoring to do whatever’s necessary for our team to succeed. In other programs, some of them might have played close to 40 minutes a game and scored a lot more points, but they wouldn’t have had the team success. They have set aside their personal ambitions for the team and it’s paid off for them. They have achieved great things with even better things to come. On top of all of that, they’ve had a ton of fun and have bonded with their teammates more than any team I’ve ever been a part of. They truly care about each other and have so much fun together on and off the court.”
Their last regular season home game will be another fun one as the Bucs take on the Miles Community College Pioneers Thursday night at 7:30 pm at DCC’s Toepke Center. The outcome is yet to be decided on that game and this season, but one thing is for sure, this group will have fun playing the game together and will be very difficult to beat!
(From Left to Right: Kayden Hitt, Jayce Griffith, Jaron Masis, Beau Santistevan, CJ Nelson, Devin Collins, Camron Dunfee, Man Man Baker, Romeo Parker and Kolten Hitt)
