Dawson Wins 6th in a Row
(pictured: Payton Sanders drives past two defenders)
The Dawson Bucs won their 6th game in a row by beating United Tribes Technical College 103-80 on Monday night in Glendive. Their record improves to 15-4 overall and 9-1 in conference. All eleven players scored for Dawson and five reached double figures. The bench of Dawson outscored the visitors 59-8.
"I think we were settling for a lot of jump shots early on, but then started being more aggressive getting to the rim," commented Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. "We did a good job of attacking and finishing inside. We are a good jump shooting team but we can't be one dimensional. We have to score in a variety of ways."
For the second straight night, Dawson got off to a slow start. Five minutes into the game, the Thunderbirds were leading 16-10 after a Jesse White jump shot. Over the next ten minutes, Dawson outscored UTTC 29-11 to hold a 12 point advantage. The change of momentum began with a Roniel Oguekwe dunk. After a Walker Doman lay-up, Oguekwe converted again on a traditional 3-point play. Famous Lefthand responded with a jumper for Tribes, but then Payton Sanders scored 5 points and Doman connected on a long range shot during the 13-2 run. The Thunderbirds cut the lead to only 7 points towards the end of the half on a lay-up by Lefthand, but Oguekwe tipped an offensive rebound out to David Ajanaku who let it fly from deep right before the buzzer sounded to give the Bucs a 49-39 advantage at the break. Lefthand scored 15 points in the first half for United Tribes while Sanders led Dawson with 13 points and Oguekwe had 12.
In the beginning of the second half, the T-birds cut the lead to five points, but Dawson responded with an 11-2 run by getting lay-ups from Ajanaku, two from Joe Mpoyo and then others from Aidan Fishell and Payton Sanders. Dawson extended their lead to 28 points eventually and coasted to the win. The Bucs shot 61% in the second half and scored 44 points in the paint to reach the century mark for the first time this season.
DCC shot 54% from the field for the game and held United Tribes under 40% from the field and under 20% from 3-point range. They held the visitors to 24 points less than their season scoring average. The Bucs finished the game with 70 points in the paint.
Lefthand finished with a game high 28 points, but took 26 shots to do it. Sylvester Union scored 16 points and grabbed 7 rebounds. Payton Sanders led Dawson with 20 points on only 15 shots. Joe Mpoyo scored 16 points and collected 8 rebounds. Oguekwe had a career high 16 points and 6 rebounds. Ajanaku and Doman rounded out the double digit scorers with 13 points and 11 points respectively.
"This has been a tough week playing at Miles on Thursday and then back to back with two of the best teams in our league," explained Peterson. "We were fortunate to get all three victories. I'm really proud of the way our guys put in the work while they were at home during the Christmas break and they came back with a hunger and a focus that has helped us a make a jump in these past couple of weeks. We still have a lot of things we can get better at, but we've put ourselves in a good position up to this point."
Dawson will take a week off from games and return to action next Monday at home vs. Williston State College.