By Jeremy McDonald
Jeremymcdonald73@gmail.com
DAYTON, Ore.– The Dayton Boys Basketball team came into Wednesday night’s PacWest Conference League Playoffs against Scio prepared and ready to go.
The Pirates took into account how much of a good shooting team that Loggers were, so they came out fast and aggressive to try to get the upper hand right off the bat. Pushing tempo, Dayton took a 19-10 lead going into the second quarter. Defensively, the Pirates floated between a 1-3-1 and a 2-3, threw the Loggers shooters off, and kept them from establishing a solid, consistent base during the game.
“That was the plan going into the game, and then in the second half slow our offense and keep them going at a high pace, and it worked out,” said Dayton’s DJ Holloway. “They’re a great shooting team, but we went out there and executed well. We ran a 1-3-1 and ran a 2-3, that messed them up a little bit, and we got a rhythm on offense, and we all came together.”
Scio knew they were at a height disadvantage with Clyde Rosenberg and Jax Brandon-Sanchez, both standing at six-foot-seven-inches tall, down in the trenches looking for the rebounds But the Loggers kept fighting. They kept grinding and chipping away at Dayton.
Down at one point 12 in the second quarter, Scio tied things up at 28 before the Pirates took a 33-28 lead into the halftime break. Both teams went back-and-forth in the third quarter with Dayton holding onto a narrow 49-47 lead going into the fourth quarter. The winner of this game would get the second automatic bid out of the conference and advance to the PacWest Conference Championship game against Taft on Saturday evening while the loser of this game will have to play Santiam Christian for a chance for the final Auto-Bid Saturday afternoon.
“Halftime…our coach was telling us that it was still our game and we still got it. We fought back and got it tied up. We didn’t come out on top,” said Scio’s Hunter Courtney. “It was a really hard-fought game. Everyone did their part. They just ended up being on top. It’s all practice. We just need to work hard in practice and do what our coach tells us to do and play ball.”
The Loggers tied the game up at 52 with 6:47 left in the game. But over the course of about four minutes, Dayton began to pull away. They used their height for rebounds on both sides of the court, their aggression created turnovers and used that for their offense to create a 13-6 advantage to put the Pirates ahead 65-58 with 3:02 left in the game.
Scio cut it to 65-61 after a Carson Avery three-pointer, but the Loggers couldn’t close the gap in time as they’ll look to rebound against the Eagles on Saturday.
Dayton took the game 71-64 as they look to take the number one seed out of the PacWest Conference.
“Rebound the ball. Rebound the ball, that’s all that was, and we throw it out, and we know what to do on offense. We all came together and worked as one unit. We went out there today, and we stepped it up, played as a unit, played defense, and we came out with a ‘W’,” Holloway said.
Holloway hit six three-pointers, five in the first half, and finished with 20 points in the win. Rosenburg finished with 33 points to lead the Pirates. Courtney led the Loggers with 25, and Hayden Tibbs finished with 16 points for Scio.
Photos By Jeremy McDonald
