12-16-05
BY JACK BULLOCK
DU QUOIN - Anytime you pick up a conference road victory it is special.

On Friday night at Anders Gym in Du Quoin, the Nashville Hornets played perhaps their best all around game of the season.

Holding down their mistakes by committing just eight turnovers on the night, the Hornets improved to 6-2 on the season by pulling away from the Indians late in a 52-32 win.

Nashville has spent most of the season playing away from friendly territory, having just a home win over Anna-Jonesboro in its only contest at the Assembly Hall in 2005-06.

Lucas O'Rear was once again workman-like, scoring 17-points to lead all scorers.

Drawing most of the attention of the DQ defense, the 6-foot-6 junior scored 12 first half points to put his club in position to go 2-0 in the SIRR Mississippi Division.

"We took care of the ball better tonight than we have in the past few games," said Nashville coach Darin Lee, whose team has now seemed to have settled down after a hectic early part of the season. "Anytime you pick up a road win in the conference it is big."

Du Quoin fell to 2-5 on the season, despite getting a fine performance from 6-foot-5 senior Bubba Harsey.

He scored a team-best 12-points for the Tribe. However he was the only Indian to reach double-digits in scoring.

While Nashville cut down on its turnovers on the night, the same could not be said for the hosts.

Coach Mike Crews' crew committed 13 violations, six of which came in a pivotal fourth quarter surge by the Hornets to put the game out of reach.

“The bad thing about this is that everyone is going to look at this thing and see a 20-point game,” said Du Quoin coach Mike Crews. “In reality this was a much closer game and our guys hung in there pretty good. This was a four, five or six-point game most of the night.”

The game basically belonged to O'Rear and Harsey early.

The two post players, that wear identical number 44's, scored the first 10-points of the contest.

Du Quoin had one brief lead at 5:08 in the first. Harsey picked O'Rear's pocket on an offensive rebound and his stick-back made it 4-2 Indians.

But O'Rear responded with a basket down low on the left blocks and his two free throws on the next trip gave the lead back to the Hornets for the final time.

Coach Lee has been looking for another scoring threat and it appears that he has found one in Brandon Reckmann, a 6-foot junior who added 14-points on Friday night to the Nashville effort.

He hit a pair of 3-pointers in the opening frame.

His second one from the right wing with 2:44 to go forced Crews to burn a timeout with his Indians down 12-4.

"Part of his (Reckmann) job is to knock down some open shots," said Lee. "All of our kids need to make those open shots when they are double-teaming Lucas."

Harsey rebounded his own miss to finish his (and his teams) scoring in the opening stanza.

However Nashville's Todd Kostecki drove down the left side of the lane for a lefthanded score just before the horn to make it 14-6 at the first stop.

"Against a man to man he (Kostecki) is effect, he gives us another weapon," said Lee. "But everybody is guarding us in different ways this season. We have seen a lot of different defensive looks."

The Indians hung around in the second quarter.

Garrett Gross and Scottie Anders connected on 3-pointers.

Anders' 'trey' ended the first half scoring at 22-16.

DQ made a brief stab at the Nashville lead early in the third quarter and they did it from long range.

Ridge Thompson hit a 3-pointer from the left wing that trimmed the Hornets lead to 22-19.

When Gross hit a 17-footer from the right side to make it 24-21, Nashville quickly regrouped.

Two big baskets by sophomore Tommy Pelczynski matched those Indian scores and a nice reverse lay in by O'Rear gave Nashville a five-point advantage.

Reckmann continued to hit from long range.

His third 'trifecta' of the evening, a 20-footer from the right wing made it 33-25 Nashville with 1:53 to go in the quarter.

The Hornets used a 9-2 run to open the final quarter, putting the game on ice.

Blaine Morris, O'Rear, Reckmann and Kostecki all contributed.

Kostecki's bucket, while being fouled by Heath Bastien, turned into a three-point play and a 42-29 spread.

Harsey scored his final points on a rebound of his own miss with 4:05 remaining.

“Bubba Harsy stood his ground on big O'Rear and did a nice job on him. And that's saying something right there,” Crews said. “He's turned the corner for us and that's a great sign.”

Nashville then put the game to rest with a 9-0 run, highlighted by an O'Rear steal and fast break assist to Reckmann on a transitional score to make it 52-32.

Nashville made a high percentage of their shots, especially from in close.
The Hornets were 21-of-37 overall, including 18-of-28 from inside of the 3-point line. Three-of-nine from behind the line is not too bad either.

Du Quoin, on the other hand, was just 11-of-40 from the field including 2-of-11 from the field in the fourth quarter.

“You are never pleased as a coach with a loss,” Crews added. “And I am proud to say that I am a bad loser. But when I can look out there and see that we are making progress, hustling and the effort is there. I can live with that.”

Du Quoin outrebounded the Hornets 19-16, due mainly to Nashville getting just two offensive rebounds.

"We defended well at times but we could be better on offense," added Lee. "We need to do a better job on the offensive glass. If you are going to win the conference you have to win road games and this was a big win."

Nashville plays Sparta at home next Friday while Du Quoin heads back to action tomorrow night against Harrisburg at home.

	1	2	3	4		Final
Nashville	14	8	11	19	-	52
Du Quoin	6	10	11	5	-	32

Nashville (52) - Reckmann 2 3 1-2 14, Morris 2 0 0-0 4, Weathers 0 0 0-0 0, Engele 0 0 0-0 0, Pelczynski 1 0 0-0 2, Kostecki 4 0 1-1 9, Patton 1 0 0-0 2, Conner 0 0 0-0 0, Lamczyk 0 0 0-0 0, York 1 0 0-0 0, O'Rear 6 0 5-6 17, Keller 1 0 0-2 2.
2FG-18, 3FG-3, FT-7-11, PF-12.
Du Quoin (32) - Harsey 5 0 2-2 12, Bullock 0 0 2-2 2, Hirsch 0 0 1-2 1, Piper 0 0 1-2 1, Williams 0 0 0-0 0, Campenella 0 0 0-0 0, Gross 3 1 0-0 9, Thompson 0 1 0-2 3, Ehler 0 0 0-0 0, Bastien 0 0 0-1 0, Atkin 0 0 0-0 0, Uhe 0 0 0-0 0, Rethoff 0 0 0-0 0, Anders 0 1 1-2 4, Booker 0 0 0-0 0.
2FG-8, 3FG-3, FT-7-13, PF-13.
Fouled Out - None.
Technical Fouls - None.