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Saturday, February 13, 2010
The Dupo Tiger Varsity Boys Basketball Team got back in the win column Friday night, improving their record to 5-18 and 1-8 in the conference as they defeated the Valmeyer Pirates 75-54. The win was the Tigers first conference win this year and was a bit of revenge for the Tigers one point 59-58 overtime loss at Valmeyer on December 18th. The win made Friday’s senior night even more special as senior players, cheerleaders and pep band members were acknowledged with their parents before the game.
The Tigers immediately came out and set the tempo implementing a full court press that was very effective. The Tiger defense caused the Pirates to turn the ball over and the Tigers were converting turnovers into points. The Tigers took the lead early and never relinquished it for the remainder of the game. The Pirates attempts at making a run against the Tigers were stopped time and again by the Tiger defense.
This was the second game in a row in which the Tigers have shown a new energy and spirit on the court. Despite their two-point loss to the Valley Park Hawks on Monday the Tigers effort Monday was a vast improvement from their play in January. The Tigers have been playing with greater intensity and have been maintaining that intensity for four quarters. Something they hadn’t been doing last month. They are more consistent, making fewer mistakes, handling the ball better and just plain hustling more. All of this has resulted in an unselfish style of play that puts points on the board and (at least for tonight) a win on their record.
The Tigers were once again led by junior forward Caleb Tatum who scored 23 points and was 4 of 4 at the free throw line. He was followed by senior Matt Ragsdale who followed his best performance of the season on Monday with an even better one on Friday night scoring 16 points and was 1 of 2 from the free throw line. In addition senior Sean Pierce had his best game in almost two months scoring 15 points. The Tigers have not had three players in double figures in one game since December.
All of this comes at a good time for the Tigers as they will wrap up their season next week with contests at Steeleville (8-8, 4-0) next Tuesday, versus Christ Our Savior Lutheran of Evansville next Thursday and at Affton (6-14, 0-5) on next Friday. The Tigers are looking to build on their recent progress as they prepare to host the Illinois State High School Class 1A Regional and face conference foe Lebanon Greyhounds on Tuesday, February 23rd at 6:00 p.m.
The seniors played all the way through. I told the seniors tonight, ‘lead us’. We had a great effort against Valley Park earlier this week and we needed to come back with that kind of effort tonight.
We knew that we could play with them and that they were a little injury depleted. They were missing one of their big scorers and the other one just came back from injury this week and we knew we had to take advantage of it.
We put Tatum at the top of that press and with his long arms and athletic ability he’s going to get two or three steal buckets per game. He just seems to always be where the ball is when rebounding and gets a lot of put back points that way.
Next week, if we get the kind of effort from Matt and Sean that we got tonight, we’ve got a shot to win all three of those games.
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