Dawson’s hot streak is halted
Mustangs suffer tough fourth quarter against
LAFAYETTE >> Every basketball team has its own quirks, different aspects that make it stand out from the crowd. Dawson boys basketball happens to be a second-half squad.
On Tuesday night in their home gym, the Mustangs exemplified that fact not only in their 45-38 loss to Class 2A’s No. 6 Denver Christian, but through the incredible run they’ve been able to string together since Jan. 22.
Over a two-week span, a 3-7 team quickly evolved into a 9-8 band of boys that’s looking at a potential bid to the Class 3A state tournament. On Tuesday night, they sat at No. 21 in CHSAA’S Selection & Seeding Index. According to CHSAA’S guidelines, the eight winners from each district tournament — which will begin at the conclusion of the regular season — will earn an automatic bid to the 32-team state tournament.
All other spots will be decided according to the Selection & Seeding Index.
“Me and (head coach Elwyn Davidson) talk about it a lot,” senior point guard Jackson Parker said. “It’s always at the end of the season where we pull it together and come back. I feel like it’s just a learning experience and we’ll just pick up on the next game, I guess.”
Parker and junior center Peter Ernst played an outsized role in the 6-0 winning streak that the Mustangs enjoyed before facing off with the Thunder, combining for 25.6 points per game. Parker ended Tuesday night with 20 points, and Ernst added another 10.
Parker believes he and his teammates gelled much better when their off-court bonds started to translate to the hardwood.
“Everything — defense, talking, offense, passing,” he explained. “Everything has been a lot better for us than the start of the season.”
The Mustangs began Tuesday’s game imitating the frozen conditions that existed outside of the gym, as Denver Christian forged its own path forward. They waited until an 11-0 deficit to break through the ice, thanks to a smooth reverse layup from Parker, then quickly began melting away the Thunder’s defenses.
Dawson’s comeback started out slow, then its offense caught fire. The Mustangs opened the second quarter with a 10-0 run following a single Thunder basket to take a 16-15 lead, then played the Thunder point-for-point leading into halftime.
They trailed 23-19 at the break, but it was fleeting.
Dawson opened the second half with an 11-0 run of its own, fueled primarily by Ernst, to really make the Thunder sweat. What ensued was a tale of two quarters.
The Mustangs owned a 32-25 advantage heading into the final eight minutes of play, as they broke through the blockade that the Thunder consistently threw up in the post, but quickly saw the momentum shift in the direction of Denver Christian.
“They just kept popping,” Davidson said. “We had to readjust our lineup because we’re a relatively small team. Most of our starters are small, so we put bigger guys out there where we could actually match it, because they were big. They had a big team.”
The Thunder, not to be silenced, out-maneuvered the Mustangs at every turn down the stretch before pulling out their 12th victory of the year. Dawson, now 9-8, will look to rebound when 2A No. 5 Heritage Christian visits it on Saturday afternoon.
That won’t be easy, but the Mustangs have more than proven that they’re up to the task.
“Every game we play, we want to compete, giving everything we have when we’re out there,” Davidson said. “Our biggest problem is we tend to get sped up. You saw at the beginning of the game (that) they put a press on us and we got sped up, so we started to make a lot of turnovers. Once I get them calmed down and know that the ball is not going to blow up in their hands, they calm down and they adjust and they play well.”