11-21-06
BY JACK BULLOCK
CRAB ORCHARD - On Tuesday night at the Crab Orchard Turkey Tourney the Dongola Demons, despite a supreme effort, couldn’t overcome 27 turnovers in its battle with the host Trojans.

But until Dongola’ Allen Sadler missed a desperation 3-pointer at the buzzer wide to the left, Crab Orchard never had the game sewed up.

Rallying from a 13-point second half deficit, the Dongola came up just three-points shy of its first win of the season.

Behind a game-high 25 points from Tommy Kissing, Coach Jon Brown’s Trojans improved to 2-0 on the young season with a 67-64 victory.

Crab Orchard didn’t exactly take care of the ball, committing 21-turnovers themselves which included one in the final seconds on an inbounds play that set up the final attempt by Coach Brad Norman’s Demons.

Nevertheless, Crab Orchard can win its next three games and secure second Turkey title in as many years.

“I give Dongola credit, they just kept coming at us tonight,” said Coach Brown. “We just didn’t take advantage of our opportunities tonight to put them away. Key turnovers and unforced errors nearly cost us tonight.”

With two games under their belts, Coach Norman saw marked improvement over the Monday night loss to Thompsonville.

“I told the kids heading into the fourth quarter that we have 30 turnovers by now boys and we are down nine points but we are still in the game,” said first year head coach Brad Norman, who wore the Dongola red and black in 2000. “If we come back and win this game it will be because we went out and played hard in the fourth quarter. I told them be smart with the ball and go to your big man and they did.”

The big man that Coach Norman was referring to is Chris Needham, a 6-foot-8 senior who in spite of wearing the foul trouble saddle most of the night, came up extra-large in the final quarter.

He scored 13 points in the game, but six of them came down the stretch when Dongola closed to within three points on three separate occasions.

Getting assists from cohorts mostly on lob passes to the post, Dongola rallied from a 60-51 deficit with 4:26 remaining.

Crab Orchard appeared to have the game put away early in the second half.

Leading by a precarious 29-25 advantage at the break, Crab Orchard rode the hot hand of David Brainard to reach its lead pinnacle.

This 6-foot-1 junior netted four 3-pointers in the first 2:12 of the third quarter.

Following his third trifecta and two free throws by Dakota Morris, the Crab Orchard led by its largest margin 45-31 at the 4:34 mark.

Among the turnovers (48 combined) there were some very good individual performances.
Zack Coder hit some key shots among his 10 points, which included a buzzer beating 3-pointer to close out the third quarter scoring.

Getting the ball quickly up the court after a Crab Orchard bucket by Tommy Kissing on a rebound, Coder threw up a shot from the top of the arc that banked home.

The score seemed to wake up the Demons as they whittled the lead to 53-44 heading to the final eight minutes.

“I’m proud of our young kids tonight who stepped up and hit shots,” added Norman. “This a 360 degree turnaround from last night. We showed up ready to go. We got behind last night and gave up. Tonight we handled the ball better late in the game and when got behind we didn’t give up.”

Crab Orchard nearly handed the victory to Dongola in the final minutes.

Missing 5-of-6 free throws during the stretch Coach Brown’s club saw its nine point lead trimmed down to one possession for most of the final minute.

But the mark of a good scorer, Kissing gave the Trojans just enough breathing room at the end.

This 6-foot-2 senior guard hit four consecutive charities in the final :43.

His last two gave Crab Orchard a 67-62 lead with :13 remaining.

Dongola, in desperation mode, went the length of the court with Sadler finishing with a driving score with :05.1 to go.

After a Demon’s timeout, Crab Orchard just needed to inbound the ball and get fouled.

But that task turned out to be difficult.

The Trojans through an ill-advised pass into the middle of the Demon’s defense and Sadler came up with the ball.

After a quick scramble Sadler found himself with the ball as the hectic time ticked away.

His shot was hurried and off-balanced and the result was a wide-left misfire at the horn.

“We missed too many free throws and let them hang around,” added Coach Brown. “We have two experienced kids (Kissing and Curtis Boester) and the rest of them need more playing time to develop the type of chemistry I want.”

The Trojans hit just half of its free throws (15-of-30) and just 23-of-63 from the field (37 percent) overall.

But on this night it was good enough for a second straight win.

Dongola scored early in the game and got a very short-lived lead.

Baskets by Sadler, Needham and Jimmy Hubbs gave the Demons a 6-3 lead with less than two minutes gone.

Their final lead of the game came on a nifty three player passing fast break from Needham to Hubbs to Timmy Williams to make it 8-6 at 3:40 of the first frame.

However a 10-0 run sparked by a pair of Boester lay-ups Crab Orchard took the lead for good at 16-8.

Dongola was a pretty good 27-of-52 (52 percent) overall from the field and 5-of-11 from 3-point range.

However they only made it to the free throw line for a 5-of-9 shooting, getting outscored by ten from the stripe.

Sadler led the Demons with 16 points as three players (Needham’s 13 and Coder’s 10) hit for double-figures.

Following Kissing’s 25, Brainard added 21, including those four third quarter 3-point bombs.

Neither team has much time to relish the win or defeat as the hosts are set to battle Century (also 2-0) in the Wednesday nightcap while Dongola will take on Shawnee at 5:30 pm.

Dongola (64) – Williams 2 1 0-0 7, Needham 6 0 1-2 13, Hubbs 3 0 0-0 6, Johnson 3 0 0-2 6, Sadler 5 2 0-0 16, Swink 1 0 4-4 6, Coder 2 2 0-1 10.
2FG-22, 3FG-5, FT-5-9, PF-24.
Crab Orchard (67) – Kissing 7 1 8-12 25, Brainard 4 4 1-7 21, Boester 3 0 2-4 8, Morris 1 1 2-4 8, Anderson 0 0 1-1 1, Pierce 0 0 0-0 0, Evetts 2 0 1-2 5.
2FG-17, 3FG-6, FT-15-30, PF-13.
Fouled Out – Williams, Johnson – Dongola
Technical Fouls – None.

CENTURY 62, THOMPSONVILLE 50
Outscoring the Tigers 20-9 in the fourth quarter, Century won the second game Wednesday night to improved to 2-0 in the event.

Blake Thurston led all scorers with 28 points while Ethan Stringer and Sam Baker chipped in 11 and 10 points.

Thompsonville (1-1) received 14 points from Jordan Browning, 13 from Alex McClerren and 12 from Jake Neilson in defeat.

Century outscored Coach John Robinson’s Tigers 22 to 11 from the foul line in the loss.

Thompsonville was just 11-of-24 in free throws.

Thompsonville (50) – McClerren 3 1 4-4 13, Householder 1 1 0-0 5, Browning 7 0 0-3 14, Fisher 1 0 1-5 3, Sickmeyer 0 0 2-2 2, Jake Neilson 3 1 3-8 12, Gaither 0 0 1-2 1, Jordan Neilson 0 0 0-0 0, Williams 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-15, 3FG-3, FT-11-24, PF-24.
Century (62) – Reichert 2 1 0-2 7, Stringer 3 0 5-6 11, Sam Baker 2 1 3-4 10, Thurston 8 0 12-18 28, Cheek 1 0 0-0 2, Butler 0 0 2-6 2, Adams 0 0 0-0 0, James Baker 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-17, 3FG-2, FT-22-36, PF-22.
Fouled Out – Sickmeyer, Fisher – Thompsonville; Sam Baker, Cheek – Century.
Technical Fouls – None.

SHAWNEE 71, JOPPA 45
Shawnee got its record back even with a romp over SEC brethren Joppa.

Four players hit for double-digits for the Redskins (1-1) while nine members of the Tribe scored in the victory.

Tim Harris led all scorers with 19 points. Jon Taylor and Blake Pinion (13 and 10) were the other two.

Three Shawnee players; Clay Murphy, Kyle Ellet and Tyler Davis added seven points each.

Joppa (0-2) got 12 markers from Andrew Lang, 11 from Andy Martin and nine from Roger Little.

Shawnee turned the game into a rout with an 18-6 fourth quarter run.

Joppa (45) – Godfrey 1 0 0-2 2, Lang 4 2 0-0 14, Little 2 1 2-2 9, Schmidt 0 0 0-0 0, Martin 5 0 1-4 11, Womack 1 0 0-2 2, Smith 0 0 0-0 0, Leonard 0 0 0-0 0, Winding 0 0 0-0 0, Wilke 1 0 1-2 3, J. Nagy 1 0 0-0 2, M. Nagy 0 0 0-0 0, Sharp 1 0 0-0 2.
2FG-16, 3FG-3, FT-4-12, PF-20.
Shawnee (71) – Pinion 1 1 5-6 10, Ellett 3 0 1-2 7, Murphy 3 0 1-2 7, Harris 8 0 3-6 19, Taylor 6 0 1-2 13, Wills 2 0 0-0 4, Davis 3 0 1-1 7, Webb 1 0 0-0 2, Musgraves 0 0 0-0 0, McAlister 1 0 0-1 2.
2FG-28, 3FG-1, FT-12-20, PF-18.