Dogie men split quadrant openers

Sonja Karp
NLJ Sports Reporter
 
There was a lot riding on Friday night as the Dogies took the court against the Bobcats of Thermopolis. The one-and-done quadrant format of the Regional tournament means no one wants to be the No. 4 seed at the end of the regular season, so both teams knew that getting the win was going to be of utmost importance and the team that wanted it more would be the team to claim it.
The Dogies wanted it more.
“Anytime you get a win against a quad opponent, especially in a year like this driven by just quad performance, it’s great to put yourself in the best position you can,” smiled head coach Allen Von Eye. “I’ve said it a ton of times, regardless of what scores look like, our team has been on a steady climb and has been improving drastically.”
Thermopolis opened up scoring with the first bucket of the contest, but that was the only advantage the Bobcats enjoyed. Newcastle led at the end of every quarter and expanded their lead to 10 in the third, but the Bobcats never really went away, thus treating fans to an exciting ball game which concluded with a 60-52 victory for the Dogies.
“We got up early, but they clawed back. They wanted to win that game just as much as we did because they also understood the importance of the game,” Von Eye admitted. “But our guys fought hard and each run the Bobcats went on, we would shut it down and answer back with a run of our own. I thought we did some really good things.”
The Bobcats applied full court pressure to the Dogies throughout much of the first half, but Von Eye’s crew handled it well.
“We have been stressing the pressure side of the game for a while now and I thought we did a good job of handling it early so that they backed out of it,” Von Eye explained. “They came back to it here and there, but I thought we responded well each time.”
Newcastle dominated Thermop on the boards finishing with their best rebounding game of the season, pulling down 45 to the Bobcat’s 31. Zach Purviance ended the night with 13, Tate Engle had 10 and Landon Engle had nine.
“When you’re able to control the glass like that, it helps out immensely,” Von Eye nodded. “That was truly a big key to the success we had in the contest.”
It was a three-point contest at the half, but the Dogies dictated the tempo in the final two quarters of play, with players stepping up and hitting some key free-throws down the stretch.
Landon Engle had his best performance of his career, just taking over on offense and scoring 26 points. There was also contribution on the offensive end by more than one player as Purviance had 17 and Tate Engle finished with eight.
“Landon was just very confident,”
Von Eye nodded. “He got to the rim or to that mid-range from which he can be pretty deadly, and he also rebounded the ball well.”
The win gave the Dogies a very important 1-0 record in the Northeast quadrant, but they were looking at taking on another quadrant opponent in a talented Buffalo Bison squad on Saturday. The Bison were coming off a dominating win against Douglas just the night before, so Von Eye’s squad knew this contest would present a tough challenge.
“We had heard early in the season that this Buffalo team wasn’t that good, but I told the guys not to pay attention to any of that, because they are playing some pretty good basketball right now,” Von Eye explained. “Even though they struggled to find their identity early, they have a bunch of seniors who are playing pretty well right now. They had Douglas on their heels and dominated them the entire second half.”
Buffalo came out with smothering full- and half-court pressure, and despite the Dogies getting off to a good start, they experienced letdowns in both the first and second quarters which Buffalo used to take a 12 point lead into the locker room.
“We handled their pressure perfectly when we executed our press break the way we are supposed to, but when we would get away from that is when there would be trouble,” Von Eye frowned. “We would get a little soft and casual with our passes and then we’d turn it over and against a team like that, they’re going to make you pay.”
Newcastle came out really solid in the third quarter and cut the lead to nine, however then things went south and consecutive turnovers allowed Buffalo to gain the momentum and they out-scored Newcastle 24-8 to put the game out of reach. Buffalo extended their lead to 35 before the Dogies were able to battle back a bit, but still fell to the Bison by a score of 40-68.
“I’m not a moral victory kind of guy but in situations like that you need to take from it what you can, and when you break things down, we really did show growth,” Von Eye began. “Realistically, all the areas that we were inefficient in are within our control. We went into the half with around 14 turnovers, and we had given up around 11 offensive rebounds. With that you’re looking at 25-plus shots and yet we were only down 12. You take that away and if they’re shooting 50%, it’s a tie ball game.”
Landon Engle once again led his team finishing with 16 points. He was followed by Tate Engle with nine, Purviance with seven and Avery Chick also with seven.
The Dogies have another big weekend ahead with a quad game against Douglas at home on Friday beginning at 7 p.m., and on Saturday, they travel to Wheatland to take on the Bulldogs.