Dayton Girls Sweep Home Tourney

DAYTON - Dayton took down two regional opponents at its own Christmas tourna- ment Thursday and Friday to notch its seventh and eighth wins of the season and keep its 1-loss record intact. The Bull- dogs lashed LaCrosse-Wash- tucna 46-19 in the opener, then outlasted Asotin, 50-46, in the championship game.

Dayton's shooting hands blazed in the first half versus Asotin. The Bulldogs hit on 12-of-19 shots (63 percent) from the filed including 4-of- 6 shooting from behind the 3-point arc. McKayla Bickel- haupt accounted for three of the treys and tallied 15 points in the first half.

Given the shooting advan- tage - Asotin hit on just 31 percent of its first-half shots - the Panthers shouldn't have been in the ballgame at halftime. Just the opposite was true. With less than 4:00 to play in the second quarter, the Panthers held a 4-point lead, 25-21. The reason: a Bulldog bout of six turnovers in less than two minutes.

The Bulldogs responded starting with Bickelhaupt's third three of the night at 3:36. Eighteen seconds later, Bickelhaupt buried a pair of free throws. Malia Frame and Lexus Ward's inside buckets capped a 9-0 Bulldog run to end the half, and give the Bull- dogs a 5-point lead at break 30-25.

Turnovers kept Asotin in the game all night, including giving the Panthers the lead going into the fourth. Dayton's six point lead 38-32 third quar- ter lead vanished thanks to nine turnovers in the last 4:30 of the quarter. At the same time, the Bulldogs shooting cooled significantly.

Its defensive pressure and work on the offensive and defensive glass did not. The Bulldogs held the Panthers scoreless in the final period until the 3:55 mark, and turned the 2-point deficit they faced entering the quarter into a five point lead. Asotin post Santana Jose closed the gap to 47-45 on a jumper with 2:11 to go, but Asotin would draw no closer. The teams finished the game trading trips to the free throw line.

"It was about that point (the turn-over plagued end of the third quarter) that the fatigue really started to set in," Dayton head coach Clayton Strong said. "We needed to get our legs back from the 5-day break. But give Asotin a ton of credit. They increased their defensive intensity, and forced into hur- ried stuff. We got impatient, panicked a little bit with the basketball and that caused turnovers which led to some baskets and kept them around."

Bickelhaupt finished the game with 19 points to lead all scorers. She also lead the team in rebounds with 11, and assists with five. Jessica Tate scored nine. Frame finished with seven points and seven rebounds. Jose led Asotin with 12 points and six boards. Panther Brielle Whitaker scored 11.

Dayton's Thursday game with LaCrosse-Washtucna was much less of a fight. The Bulldogs blew open a close 8-7 game at the end of the first quarter by outscoring the TigerCats 38-12 the rest of the way.

Frame led the Bulldogs in scoring and rebounds with 16 and nine. Lexi Ramirez also had 9 rebounds. Bickelhaupt chipped in 11 points and Lexus Ward another eight. Tate led the Dogs with five steals.

"We missed a lot of easy looks early in the game," said Strong. "The second half I thought we hit the offensive glass better," said Strong. "We had 16 offensive boards overall."

The wins bump Dayton's record to 8-1. The Bulldogs are 2-0 in league play. Dayton is off until Friday when they take on Lewiston (Ida.) in Lewiston.