The Dawson Buccaneers and United Tribes Thunderbirds turned their basketball game into a track meet on Monday night in Bismarck, putting up a total of 227 points on the scoreboard. The Buccaneers had their chances to run away with the game, especially when they went up by 22 points with 10 minutes remaining, but the Thunderbirds wouldn't go away. When the dust finally cleared, Dawson walked away with a 118-109 victory for their 8th straight win to open the season.
"I loved the pace of the game," exclaimed Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. "I'm sure it was fun to watch, but we have to be more locked in defensively and not give up second chances like we did tonight. If we could've strung together a few more stops in the final ten minutes, we could've put them away. You have to give credit to Coach Conway and his team. They do an excellent job of handling our pressure and they never stop battling."
In the first half, Dawson shot 52% and scored 62 points, led by 11 points each from Seth Amunrud and Demetric Kindle. They only turned it over three times and snagged 11 offensive rebounds. United Tribes went into half-time facing a 61-52 deficit. In the second half, the visiting Bucs shot 64.2% from the field and 55.6% from long range. They built a 94-72 lead halfway through before UTTC came storming back. At one point, they cut the deficit to seven points, but never got closer than that.
Both teams had 12 turnovers in the game. Dawson won the rebounding battle 50-42 and shot 56.3% from the field and 55.6% from the three-point line for the game. Six Buccaneers finished in double figures, led by Seth Amunrud's game high of 23 points. He also collected 9 rebounds. Ty Buckmon had 19 points and 6 rebounds. Jordan Jasper came off the bench to score 17 points. Roniel Oguekwe added 15 points and 8 rebounds. Justin Asi and Demetric Kindle contributed 11 points and 10 points respectively.
Seven Thunderbirds reached double figures, led by 20 points from Trae Hugs and Houston Davis.
Dawson improves to 8-0 overall and 5-0 in conference play while United Tribes falls to 5-3 overall and 3- 2 in conference play. The Bucs will travel to Williston for their next Conference game on Thursday night at 6:00 pm CST before returning home on Sunday for a 4:00 pm matchup with Bismarck State College.