Dawson Three-peats in Mon-Dak Tip-off Tournament
For the third straight year, and the 4th time in the past 5 years, the Dawson Buccaneers won the Buster Gillis Mon-Dak Conference Tip-off Tournament Championship. In every championship game, they have faced a different conference foe each time. This time around they defeated Miles Community College 105-95. Seth Amunrud was named the Tournament MVP after averaging 22.7 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2.7 steals per game. In the championship game he finished with 28 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 2 steals to lead Dawson in all four categories.
To open the game, Dawson scored the first 7 points on two buckets by Justin Asi and a three-point play from Amunrud. Miles came right back though to tie the game at 7. There were 3 ties and 2 lead changes in the early going before Dawson took control with a 11-2 run. They gained their largest lead at 48-35 in the closing minutes of the half, but Miles finished the half with a 10-6 run to get it to single digits at the break, 54-45. The Bucs shot a higher percentage from the field and outrebounded the Pioneers 24-20 in the first half. Amunrud, Jordan Jasper and Asi led the way with 15 points, 12 points and 9 points respectively.
In the second half it looked like Dawson was going to run away with it when they started on a 16-4 run. Miles wasn't going anywhere though and they kept fighting back time and time again. The Pioneers did much of their damage from the charity stripe where they went 22-26 in the second half and 34-42 for the game. Dawson maintained a pretty sizable lead for most of the second half and held on for the ten point victory. The Bucs shot 53% from the field for the game while Miles connected on 45% from the field. Dawson also collected 11 offensive rebounds in the second half compared to only two for Miles, outscoring them 11-4 on second chance points in the final twenty minutes.
Along with Amunrud's team high of 28 points, Justin Asi had 20 points and 7 rebounds in twenty minutes. Kur Maler finished with 15 points and 5 rebounds and Jordan Jasper scored 12 points, all in the first half.
For Miles, Yohandry Ortiz finished with a game high 29 points, including 14-15 from the free throw line. Azenio Cossa had 20 points.
"Its not easy to get three wins on back to back to back nights against quality opponents," exclaimed Dawson Coach Joe Peterson. "Our guys stuck together through the ups and downs all weekend and kept battling until the end. I like how well we played together as a team. We have to get a little better defensively and be able to keep guys in front of us; and learn to do that without fouling, but that is something that can be fixed. There is still a long season ahead of us so we need to keep that mentality of trying to get better every day. This is a fun group to coach and a fun team to watch."
In their three games in the tournament, Dawson averaged 105.7 points per game while giving up only 76.7 points per game. They have forced an average of 23 turnovers and only turned it over 12.3 times per game. The Bucs are shooting 50% from the field and 34% from 3-point range while out rebounding their opponents by 10 rebounds a game.
The 3-0 Bucs will take a short break before playing at home next Sunday at 4:00 pm vs. Rocky JV. Then they will play again on Monday, November 11 vs. Central Wyoming at 12:00 noon.
