The Kewanee Boilers went into a first-quarter buzzsaw Tuesday night at Dixon High School.
Darius Harrington, the Dukes’ 6’2″ 205 lb junior forward, made his presence known early and often in Dixon’s 23-8 first quarter outburst against the Boilers.
Harrington had nine points in the paint which helped to open up Dixon’s sharpshooters on the perimeter for a couple 3-pointers in the first quarter. In all, the Dukes made eight 3-pointers on the night.
Dixon’s defense also picked off a couple Kewanee passes and drove them in for layups in the first quarter.
“From the opening moments of the first quarter we seemed to be on our heels at both ends of the court,” lamented Kewanee Coach Matt Clark.
“Dixon did a good job turning us over with their press and converting those into layups and open threes in transition. Falling behind 23-8 at the end of the first forced us to get out of what we wanted to do defensively,” added Clark.
Although the Boilers struggled to find their offense throughout the game, they were only outscored 34-24 in the remaining three quarters of play. The first quarter proved to be too much of a hill to climb and resulted in a 57-33 non-conference loss for Kewanee.
“We wanted to contain the ball handler and not allow penetration into the lane because we knew they could shoot the three so well,” said Clark. “The early deficit forced us to extend our pressure defense which Dixon took advantage of and we allowed way too many second chance points.”
The Dukes outscored the Boilers 12-10 in the second quarter. Austin Hicks hit two treys for Dixon and Davontae Jordan had five points for Kewanee.
The Dukes held the Boilers to just six points in the third quarter, while a trio of Dixon players made threes in the frame, scoring nine of Dixon’s 13 third quarter points. Each team scored nine fourth quarter points.
Braden Clark’s 14 points were spread fairly evenly throughout the game. He shared high scoring honors with Harrington. Hicks (three 3-pointers) had 13 and Cullen Shaner added 11 for Dixon. Jordan finished with 10 for Kewanee.
Dixon moves to 4-0 on the season and Kewanee falls to 2-3 (0-1).
Clark noted that his team needs to have two great practices this week before hosting Peoria Quest (1-3) Friday. The game is set to start at 7 p.m.
Riveters
The Kewanee sophomore team also lost to Dixon, 44-34. Abe Hicks and Logan Peed each scored 10 points for the Riveters (3-2).
