Bulldogs’ Victorious, But Barely

DAYTON - To call the opening quarter of the Dayton versus Waitsburg- Prescott boys game 'slug- gish' would be a slap to the slimy faces of gastropods everywhere. The Bulldogs snapped out of their scor- ing slump first then held off the visiting Cardinals late to earn a 34-31 victory in the first meeting of the season between the Touchet Valley rivals.

The point total of the first 8 minutes of Saturday's con- test hearkened back to the point totals of the early days of basketball - before Dr. Naismith discovered peach baskets and used coffee cans instead. The two varsity boys teams managed just three points apiece in the first quarter-Dayton on 8 per- cent shooting from the field and WP on 10. In fact, WP blanked Dayton until Isaiah Lambert buried a 3-pointer from the left corner seconds before the first period horn.

The Bulldogs picked up the pace significantly in the second, connecting on 4-of- 9 tries, while the Cards posted a second straight 1-for- 10 shooting quarter. The halftime tally favored the Bulldogs 12-5. Lambert's second trey two minutes into the second gave Dayton the lead at 6-5. The Bulldogs never trailed again.

Dayton built the lead to eight at 16-8 after a Wyatt Frame bucket in the paint. The Cardinals narrowed the margin to two with an 8-2 rally to close out the third period.

Dayton returned the favor in the first half of the fourth. The Bulldogs outscored WP 8-3, to take a 26-19 with 5:19 remaining.

But WP refused to quit. Senior guard Dalton Estes, who had scored only two points prior, forced the action hitting on a short bucket, then two long 3s to narrow the deficit to 32-29. After a defensive stop, WP's Chance Leroue was fouled and hit on two free throws with 41 seconds left to bring the Cards within one, 32-31.

Dayton tried to run the clock down on its last pos- session, rotating the ball but not shooting or driving. When Lambert caught the ball 12 feet out on the back side of the defense and after pausing, finding no one coming out on him, the 5-foot-8 senior spotted up a jumper and nailed it with 12 seconds remaining.

WP rushed the ball up the court one last time, but WP high-scorer Owen Lanning's jumper missed its mark. Cardinal Devin Acevedo gathered the rebound in the left corner, but his despera- tion shot at the buzzer sailed long sealing the Dayton win.

"We were getting decent looks, but we just can not make lay-ins right now," WP head coach Tavis Crittenden said. "On free throws, we were 4-of-10. We can't make our lay-ins. We can't make our free throws."

Crittenden said the team worked hard on defense but seemed to struggle to ex- ecute simple plays.

"It was a pretty physical game," Dayton head coach Roy Ramirez said. "We were a little surprised. We don't usually see that in our league. It was called pretty even both ways, but it was pretty physical."

Few fouls were called in the first half, though it appeared many could have been called on both teams. Only WP's Lanning took shots (two) from the stripe in the first half.

"We outlasted them," Ramirez said. "Dalton (Estes) was getting hot and started hitting those threes. But you know I thought we played hard. I was really happy with the effort. We need to just execute a little better, and we'll play better next time."

While neither team shot well from the field, Dayton's advantage at the free throw line more than accounted for the winning difference in the game. WP finished 4-of- 10, including a missed front end of a 1-and-1 by Estes and two missed shots on a shooting foul by Lanning in the final stretch. Dayton shot 10-of-15 from the line for the game, including 4-of-4 in the final two minutes.

Dayton improves to 2-4 on the year and 1-1 in league play. WP falls to 1-5, 0-2 in league. Dayton's next game is a rematch with Pomeroy Thursday in Pomeroy. WP next takes the court at Mac- Hi in Milton-Freewater on Saturday.

WP's defense shined but its offense took a night off Friday, as the Cardi- nals dropped a low-scoring, 10-point decision to the Tri- Cities Prep Jaguars, 45-35. The Cards trailed by just one point entering the second period, but were outscored 15-10 and 14-9 over the next two periods and could not make up the lost ground in the fourth.

"Friday night was the ex- act same thing as Saturday," WP coach Tavis Crittenden said of his team's poor of- fensive showing. "We went 5-of-29 in the paint, 3-of-14 on free throws, and 4-of-22 from the 3-point line. We held the team to 45 points. We got the ball in the paint. We did everything we could and we just missed lay-ins. We missed lay-in after lay-in after lay-in. We couldn't buy a basket this weekend."

Owen Lanning led the Cards with 11 points. TCP's Josh Guajardo led all scorers with 19.

The Asotin Panthers raced to a 16-point first quar- ter lead and never looked back Friday as they wiped out the Bulldog boys 57-28. The score at the end of three quarters was 45-15.

"We were just flat-flat- out flat," said a near speech- less Dayton coach Roy Ramirez. "To be fair to Aso- tin, they did a pretty good job on us. But we couldn't even catch a basketball tonight. All I can say is we were flat."

Dakota Hays and Wyatt Frame led the Dogs in scor- ing with 10 apiece. Asotin big-man Nathan Scheibe finished with 22 to lead all scorers.

"They are really long," Ramirez said. "But we just didn't do the little things we needed to do. We didn't block out. We didn't close out with our hands. We just we weren't well enough pre- pared and that's on me."

Cardinals vs Bulldogs

WP321115-31 Dayton39616-34

FG: WP 12-51 23.5%; Dayton 11-44 25%.

FT: WP 4-10 40%; Dayton 10-15 67%.

Turnovers: WP 16, Dayton 15.

WP - Lanning 13 points, 9 rebounds; Estes 11 points; Leroue

11 rebounds.

Dayton - Frame 12 points, 9 rebounds; Lambert 10 points.