Dawson Explodes in Region XIII Semifinals
Dawson saved its best offensive performance of the season for the postseason. The Buccaneers put up a season high 132 points in the semi-finals of the Region XIII Tournament Wednesday night. They beat the Miles Community College Pioneers for the fourth time this season, 132-106, to set up a rematch with Williston State College in the championship game on Sunday in Glendive. Dawson has won 15 of their last 16 games, with the only loss coming at Williston two weeks ago. On Monday in the semifinals, the Bucs shot 57% from the field, 39% from the 3-point line and 90% from the free throw line; and only turned it over 8 times.
"I'm sure it was a fun game for the fans to watch and we enjoyed playing in it, but I hope we play a little better defense on Sunday than we did tonight," explained Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. "I loved how we shared the ball tonight and played so unselfishly. We have a lot of guys who can go get a basket on their own, but it makes it a lot easier when we move the ball and play together as a team. I have to give credit to Miles though. They have some really good offensive players that are hard to stop. In the first half they were getting to the basket at will, and in the second half they couldn't miss from long range. Fortunately, we made enough plays to maintain control of the game."
It was the 19th time in 31 games that Dawson has broken the century mark. They've scored over 110 points eight times, over 120 points five times, but this was the first time they've scored over 130 points. The Bucs are averaging 102.4 points per game. That is the second highest average in the country.
In the early stages, the game was pretty tight. Dawson held a slim 30-28 lead twelve minutes into the game. The Bucs then outscored the Pioneers 32-14 in the final eight minutes of the half. It was Dawson's bench that gave them a boost by outscoring the visiting reserves 23-6. Turnovers were also a big key as they forced 11 first half turnovers, leading to 15 points. Seth Amunrud and Jordan Jasper scored 14 points each for Dawson while Yohandry Ortiz and Mack Page scored 14 points and 13 points for the visitors.
In the second half the margin stayed around twenty for the first five minutes before Miles made a strong charge, led by Azenio Cossa's three straight 3-pointers. He followed that up with a traditional three-point play and then a dunk. Donnie Haney made a 3-pointer to cut the deficit to only 11 points at 88-77. The Bucs scored the next ten points to push the lead back to 21 points. A couple minutes later they had another 10-0 run to increase the lead to 32 points and coasted to the finish line from there. The Pioneers tried to keep it close by connecting on 13-19 from long range in the second half, but they couldn't slow down the high flying Buccaneers on the other end as Dawson shot 66% from the field, scoring 70 points in the 2nd half.
Dawson won the battle of the boards on the night, 39-30, and forced the visitors into 24 turnovers, leading to 39 points off turnovers. Their bench outscored MCC 49-28. Eleven Buccaneers got into the scoring column, led by Seth Amunrud's game high 32 points on 12-19 shooting. He also added a game high 8 rebounds and 6 assists. Jordan Jasper contributed 20 points, 8 assists and 9 steals. Justin Asi had 16 points on 7-9 shooting. Kur Maler, Sam Massaquoi and Anson Johnson came off the bench to add 14 points, 10 points and 10 points respectively. Johnson also grabbed 8 rebounds while Massaquoi had 6 assists, 4 rebounds and 3 steals.
Azenio Cossa finished with 25 points for Miles. Yohandry Ortiz scored 22 points.
Dawson is now 28-3 on the season and will square off with Williston State College at home on Sunday afternoon at 4:00 pm in the Region XIII Championship Game. The winner of the Region XIII Championship will host the winner of Region XI on the following Saturday, March 15th, in the North Central District Championship Game.
The 28 wins on the season is the 2nd highest win total in the 67 years of Dawson basketball history (in 1978-1979 Dawson was 31-5 and in 1970-1971 they were 28-8).
After the game, Dawson honored two individuals for special recognition. In their last regular season game, Seth Amunrud reached the 1,000 point milestone in his two seasons as a Buccaneer. In tonight's game, Justin Asi surpassed the 1,000 point threshold. These are the first two individuals in Coach Peterson's ten years at Dawson to have scored over 1,000 points.
