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Close, but no cigar. Always the bridesmaid, never the bride. Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. These are some familiar terms that apply to the Dupo High School Boys Basketball team as of late. The Tigers who are playing in the Affton High School Holiday Tournament this week have dropped their first two games of the tourney by a margin of five points. And in each of those two games you get the feeling that they are better than their record indicates and that they should be winning. But instead the Tigers once again find themselves in the loss column. This time losing to the tournament’s #4 seed the Valley Park Hawks 48-43.
Both teams struggled to find their game in the first half as turnovers and missed shots seemed to be the order of the day. The Tigers trying to work the ball down low to Kaleb Anderson and Caleb Tatum while the Hawks sought to get the ball inside to their big man, 6’7” Josh Ramsey. Neither team gained the advantage and the Hawks held a slim lead after one quarter 11-9.
The second quarter was really more of the first. Both teams were having difficulties of their own. The Hawks were having trouble with the Tiger defense. The defensive play of the Tigers’ Keynan Outlaw against the Hawks’ Josh Ramsey was instrumental in keeping the Hawks in check. Ramsey had a decent game with 16 points but never truly got on track offensively. Dupo Tigers Coach Matt Carpenter said, “We knew they had the big kid Ramsey and we played our defense to stop him. With the exception of the first quarter we pretty much did that. But we had some holes on defense that we never filled and their guard Herbst took advantage of that. They did what they had to in order to win and we just came up a few plays short. Keynan’s role is expanding because he works his tail off and he does what I ask him to do. He plays defense well, boxes out and rebounds well. He’s getting better with each game.” The Tigers on the other hand were their own worst enemy. Getting good open shots and second and third chances the Tigers could not get their shots to fall and shot a terrible 27% from the field in the game. Still the Tigers managed to outscore the Hawks in the second quarter and tied the game at 21-21 to end the first half.
For the early part of the third quarter the Tigers and Hawks exchanged the lead several times. But the Hawks, failing to work the ball into their center Ramsey, began to rely on their junior guard Ben Herbst and he didn’t let them down. Capitalizing on Tiger ball handling errors and missed shots, Herbst found gaps in the Tigers’ defense and exploited it. While Herbst was only 5 of 13 from the field he got the Tigers to foul him and he did his damage at the free throw line hitting 9 of 10 and led all scorers with 19 points as the Hawks outscored the Tigers 13-5 in the third quarter to take the lead 34-26.
The Tigers came back in the fourth quarter scoring the first four points of the quarter making it 34-30 with 6:00 minutes remaining in the game. The Hawks responded with a 5-0 run against the Tigers to extend their lead to 9 points 39-30 with 3:34 left in the game. The Tigers were definitely missing the presence of their best rebounder and one of their best scorers Caleb Tatum who spent much of the second half on the bench with foul trouble. Coach Carpenter said, “When Tatum is not on the court we’re missing the guy that can do it all. He can score inside and outside, he’s our best rebounder and he plays good defense. But we had some guys step up and try to fill in. Our Freshman Jimmie Dickerson did a good job today as well as Senior Keynan Outlaw” Feeling a sense of urgency, the Tigers began to foul around the 2:00 minute mark to try and slow the game down a bit and give themselves some offensive opportunities. It also gave Tigers’ Coach Matt Carpenter to make some game specific substitutions to help his team at both ends of the floor. The Tigers went to a man-to-man full court press in order to create some turnovers and it was somewhat successful but not to the extent needed to bring them all the way back. The Tigers drew close several times in the last two minutes of the game but the Hawks converted on their free throws and finished with the win 48-43 over the Tigers.
The Tigers were led by Kaleb Anderson with 13 points and Caleb Tatum with 12 points, Kevin Steinhauer had 7 points. The Tigers were 7 of 13 at the free throw line while the Hawks were 15 of 23 from the free throw line. 12 of the Hawks 14 points in the fourth quarter were free throws. It was another disappointing loss for the Tigers who have been playing well but just haven’t found the keys to success yet. I asked Coach Carpenter if the team was feeling frustrated and he responded, “I know they’re frustrated right now as I am too. We’ve had a number of close games in recent weeks that we lost but we also know that there are a number of things that we need to do in order to win those games. Before this game today we had been averaging 25 turnovers a game, we didn’t do that today. We are getting better, it’s just taking more time then we would have liked. We’re hoping to play well in the 7th place game and maybe springboard that into something as we enter the remainder of the season. We’ll see Valley Park again, they’re our first game back after this tournament and we know what we have to do against them.”
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