Dawson Men Beat Miles Again
Led by Damon Gros Ventre's 19 points, the Dawson Community College Buccaneers beat rival Miles Community College on Thursday night. Despite only shooting 38% from the field and 26% from the 3 point line, the Bucs led wire to wire in the 82-59 win. Dawson forced 25 turnovers and outrebounded Miles 50-36.
The Pioneers struggled to score early on as Dawson jumped out to a 16-2 lead in the first nine minutes of the game. MCC played the Bucs pretty evenly for the rest of the half, but Dawson stretched their lead to 18 points with 3:46 remaining and carried that advantage into the locker room at 44-26. DCC collected 13 offensive rebounds in the opening half and had a 28-13 rebounding advantage while forcing 12 turnovers. Neither team shot it very well from the field or from long range. Aleksis Nika led Dawson with 11 points in the first half including 3-4 from 3-point range.
In the second half, it looked like Dawson would blow them out, but the undermanned Pioneers kept playing hard and eventually whittled the deficit down to 13 points a couple of times. They couldn't cut it down anymore and Dawson made a late run to secure the 23 point victory. Gros Ventre led the way in the second half for Dawson with 14 points.
Gros Ventre finished with 19 points. Nika 13 points and 5 rebounds. David Ajanaku had 12 points and 5 rebounds. Blessing Adesipe led Miles with 16 points. Ethan Venema contributed 13 points, 9 rebounds and 3 blocks.
"It wasn't very pretty," commented Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. We didn't shoot it very well tonight and turned it over too much. It felt like we were about to break it open for most of the night, but we could never quite do it. Give credit to their players and coaches. They kept fighting and gave it everything they could tonight. They played really hard."
Dawson returns home for a first place showdown with North Dakota State College of Science on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 pm. NDSCS is 15-2 on the season while Dawson is 13-4. Both teams are 7-1 in the conference. Whoever wins Sunday will take sole possession of first place in the Mon-Dak Conference. Right before the start of the men's game on Sunday, Dawson will be honoring their latest Hall of Fame Inductees.
