By RANDY CAVIN
Press Sports
Dresden’s girls had no trouble with visiting McKenzie on Tuesday night.
The Lion boys had no such good fortune.
The Lady Lions dominated the Lady Rebels on the offensive glass and got 25 turnovers from McKenzie in rolling to a 62-41 District 13A win to remain a half game behind Gleason in the standings.
Dresden’s boys, meanwhile, had revenge on their minds after an earlier overtime loss to McKenzie on Dec. 11, but the Rebels had other plans and came out with a 52-49 win.
“We did a great job on the offensive boards tonight with 18 rebounds,” Lady Lion head coach Jonathan West said. “We played hard offensively while attacking and playing aggressively.”
The aggressive play by the Lady Lions resulted in 28 fouls called against the Lady Rebels.
The Lady Lions are now 10-2 in the district and 15-4 overall. McKenzie is 5-9 and 7-15.
The Lion boys let an eight-point lead with 6:31 remaining in the game fall to the wayside thanks an 11-point fourth period by McKenzie’s Trevor Willis.
It looked like the two teams were heading into another overtime game after Dresden’s Austin Daniel made a pair of free throws with 6.8 seconds remaining, but Willis took the inbounds pass, drove the length of the court, made the layup and was fouled by Kourtney Sawyer with 1.2 seconds left on the clock.
Sawyer drew a technical foul afterwards, resulting in three free throw attempts by Willis. He only made 1-of-3, but the damage was done when the Lions allowed him to drive to basket.
“Apparently everyone knew he was going to get the ball except for us,” a somber Tommy Dilday said after the game. “What we did in the second and third quarters, we did not do in the fourth. We were waiting on him to come to us, and he was making the move and shooting it. We were not going to him.”
Dresden is now 8-4 in District 13A and 11-7 overall. The Rebels are 12-1 in the district and 17-5 overall. McKenzie has now won seven in a row and 15 out of its last 17 games.
Dresden will play Carroll Academy tonight at home in a make-up game. Dresden will back at home on Jan. 29 to take on Gleason in what will be a battle for first place in the girls’ district standings.
DHS 62, McKenzie 41 (G)
The Lady Lions are doing everything they can to keep pace with Gleason in the district standings, and on Tuesday night they did almost everything right.
Dresden’s pressure defense led to Carrie Hatchel hitting back-to-back 3-pointers in the early going to give Dresden a quick 7-2 lead, and the Lady Lions dominated the game from there.
The Lady Lions were aggressive on both ends of the court and it showed immensely on the offensive end with 18 rebounds.
Meanwhile, most of McKenzie’s fouls came in the first half as Dresden was dictating the pace of the game.
The Lady Lions hit 18-of-24 free throws in the first half and finished 22-of-33 for the game.
“We have been shooting free throws pretty good here lately,” West said. “There were stretches early in the year where we didn’t, but we have been doing better with that here lately.”
Dresden had 19 shots from the charity stripe in the second period alone and made 15 for a 38-20 halftime lead.
Hatchel scored 11 points in a total of two periods of play. She sat out most of the second period after picking up her second foul. West decided to sit her out rather than have her get into more foul trouble — a problem that has been plaguing some of Dresden’s starters in recent games.
“We have had a tendency in several games to get Carrie or Amy (McAlpin) in foul trouble, and it has been in situations where we could not sit them out,” West said. “We were up big, so we went ahead and took her out and let her sit so other girls could play. If we ever get into a situation where we do not have them because of extreme foul trouble in the tournament, we will need the experience.”
Hailey Browning did a good job running the offense as point guard while Hatchel was on the bench. Browning was second in scoring for Dresden with 13 points.
McAlpin led all scorers with 18 points. It was announced during a time-out that McAlpin had joined the 1,000 point club during Dresden’s win against Huntingdon last Friday.
Kailey Marhn led McKenzie with 13 points.
McKenzie 52, DHS 49 (B)
The Lions looked to have the Rebels on the ropes early in the fourth period with an eight-point lead and two of McKenzie’s players in foul trouble, but Willis took over and outscored the Lions 6-2 during a two-minute span to get the Rebels to within four points.
Breshan Oglesby of McKenzie drew a foul and hit both charity shots to make 47-45 with 1:32 left on the clock. Hunter Lowe then stole the ball from Brock Dilday at halfcourt and laid it in to tie the game with 1:20 to play.
McKenzie’s Grant Lowrance had a chance to put the Rebels up by three with 24.1 seconds to play after he was fouled by Daniel, but he missed the extra shot to make it 49-47.
Daniel tied it up with his two free throws before Willis hit the game-winner. Willis scored the game-high with 25 points. He scored eight points in the first period before the Lions held him in check in the second and third periods.
The Lions had ample chances to score in the final period, but missed some easy shots and turned the ball over five times in the period. The Rebels outscored the Lions 17-7 in the fourth period.
“It took a whole concentrated group to lose the game the way we did in the fourth quarter from missed opportunities,” the Lions’ head coach said. “We should have had an 11- or 12-point lead, but missed four straight free throws and then we missed a couple of three-footers and three layups. Any one of those shots could have put the game away and won it for us.”
Dresden got three consecutive 3-pointers in the third period by Dilday, Joey Caldwell and Austin Maxey to take a 36-28 lead midway through the third period. The Lions closed out the final 1:50 of third with a six-point run to make 42-35 on a 3-pointer by Caldwell, a basket by Daniel and one free throw by Sawyer.
Daniel led the Lions with 14 points followed by Caldwell with nine. Dilday scored eight and Kaleb Houston added seven. Lowe scored 15 for the Rebels.

Published in The WCP 1.24.13