Dawson Drops 1st Game of the Season at Gillette

It took 11 games and 5 weeks, but the Dawson Buccaneers finally lost their first game of the season. The Gillette College Pronghorns took it to the visiting Bucs 96-82 on Thursday morning in the Border Wars. Dawson scored the first point of the game on a free throw from Ty Buckmon, but then Gillette took the lead and never looked back as they raced to a 52-36 halftime lead.

Dawson came out of the intermission strong, but Caleb Hollenbeck kept answering with 3-pointers (4-8 in the second half) to keep the Pronghorns comfortably in control. In the final four minutes, Dawson cut the deficit to single digits, though they couldn't complete the comeback attempt. There were 52 fouls in the game. Dawson made 27 of 35 free throws while Gillette made 22-35. The Bucs turned it over 19 times and the Pronghorns 16 times. Gillette shot it better from the field (47% to 39%) and grabbed ten more rebounds than DCC did.

"I thought we came out timid in the first half and were back on our heels," shared Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. "They are long and athletic and were the aggressors from the start. We settled for some average shots and turned it over too much to give ourselves a serious chance. I liked how we bounced back in the second half and kept competing. If you can't rebound with teams, it makes it really hard to beat them. Playing good teams like this will make us better in the long run. We need to be ready to bounce back tomorrow and get ready for another tough team."

Caleb Hollenbeck led all scorers with 27 points on 10-17 fg and 7-13 on 3's for Gillette. Jaden Witter-Watts scored 18 points.

Seth Amunrud led Dawson with 17 points, all in the second half. Ty Buckmon had 16 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. Roniel Oguekwe had 10 points and 8 rebounds.

Dawson is now 10-1 on the season while Gillette improves to 9-2 overall. Dawson will play Western Nebraska Community College on Friday night at 7:45 pm in Gillette.