Dade County’s Josh Green goes up for a shot as North Murray’s Zach Vess guards Tuesday at Dade County High School.TRENTON, Ga. – It didn’t matter that Dade County got in a little foul trouble in the first half. Neither did it matter that the Wolverines lost a little focus at the start of the second and third quarters.
What mattered most Tuesday was they were able to establish and maintain the tempo they wanted against North Murray in their Region 7-B/AA high school basketball game at Dade County. The Wolverines defeated the Mountaineers 87-68.
Dade County (15-5) is now 10-0 in the subregion and North Murray (15-6) is 9-2. Both have secured byes for the region tournament and are the leading candidates to claim the top spots from the B subregion.
“We played much, much better. They deserved to win the ballgame when we played at their place,” Dade coach Glen Hicks said of the game when his team scored the winning points against the Mountaineers with less than 10 seconds to play.
Cole Birchfield made a 3-point goal 2:10 into the game Tuesday, breaking a tie at 4, and the Wolverines raced to a 25-9 lead by the end of the first quarter.
“We’ve got a couple of kids that can play a 94-foot game, but against Dade you don’t want to run that game,” North Murray coach Eric Bishop said. “We want to take advantage of some spots when we can. Coach Hicks and Dade do that so well, but that’s not our game. We preached that and worked on it in practice, but’s easy during the game to want to lay it up and for us to jump in there and play that way. That’s not how you play Dade.”
The Mountaineers missed out when given some opportunities to close the gap in the second quarter. For instance they were in the bonus with 5:50 to go until halftime but ended up 7-of-17 from the free-throw line in the first half. Two Wolverines had three fouls each at the break.
“The only difference with a lot of our kids is offensive ability,” Hicks said. “We’ve got nine or 10 guys we can put out there and feel like we’re going to get something positive. We feel with our system, as long as they go in and play hard, good things are going to happen.”
Like he did at the 7:01 mark of the second quarter after his team surrendered seven consecutive points, Hicks called time out at 6:59 of the third quarter after a 7-1 North Murray run to start the second half made it 44-34. The Wolverines outscored the Mountaineers 18-10 the rest of the quarter and led by no less than 17 throughout the fourth.
“Nip it in the bud,” Hicks said of his quick timeouts.
Dade County had an overwhelming edge in shooting on the night, making 13 3-point goals. The Wolverines ended up making 20 of 30 free throws while the Mountaineers made 12 of 31.
Birchfield led Dade County with six 3-pointers and 29 points. Josh Green added 22 points and Ben Williams, who drew praise from Hicks for his work inside, totaled 17. Clynt Bell’s 12 points all came from behind the arc.
“At the beginning of the year we were 1-3 and searching for our identity,” Hicks said. “Now we know Birch and Bell are our shooters, and Green can shoot it, too. Everybody kind of plays their roles now. We’re just having a ball. I appreciate them letting me be along for the ride.”
Tyler Duckett’s 30 points included both of North Murray’s 3-point goals. Zach Vess worked the post area for 21 points.