Dexter Tiger boys shake off slow start to topple Schenck

By Ernie Clark
Staff Writer

DEXTER — Things were not looking good for the Dexter boys basketball team Thursday, Jan. 14.

Having already lost their earlier meeting with Schenck by 24 points at East Millinocket last month, the Tigers were again watching the Wolverines have their way early in the rematch at Ed Guiski Gymnasium.

But three timeouts by veteran Dexter coach Peter Murray during the game’s first 9 minutes, 32 seconds finally settled his team down, and the Tigers went on to secure their most pointworthy victory of the season, a 58-48 win over Schenck in a battle of Class C North contenders.

“At the beginning of the game we were not playing at the tempo we wanted,” said Murray. “We had established coming into the game that that was not what we were going to do, but that’s what we were doing, so we had to have a couple of reminders apparently to get back to playing the game the way it needed to be played for us to have a chance to win.”

That game plan featured offensive patience designed to generate high-quality shots, which in the first half included three 3-pointers — two by Joshua Simcock — as Dexter turned a 12-2 deficit into a 24-19 intermission lead.

After the break, the Tigers used crisp interior passing and strength in the post to outmuscle a Schenck team experiencing foul trouble by junior standout Justin Thompson and his brother, freshman Travis Thompson.

Dexter (9-3) made 10 of its 19 field-goal attempts during the second half and 10 of 15 free throws in the fourth quarter — including a 7-for-8 performance by junior Jason Campbell — to end Schenck’s eight-game winning streak.

“There’s like a spark in us,” said Dexter junior forward Brayden Miller, who worked inside for team-high totals of 20 points, 10 rebounds and four assists. “I don’t know what it is but we’ve been playing together for a long time and once we get going we don’t stop.”

Miller and classmate Zach White combined for 25 of Dexter’s 34 second-half points on nine of 16 shooting, with nearly all that offense coming from the lane.

“We decided to mix up what we were doing on the offensive end, and coach Murray made a good call, he saw something he thought we could take advantage of,” said White, one of just two players on Dexter’s senior-less roster with any varsity experience before this season.

“We had stretched the court [with the early 3-pointers] so it was time to attack them differently, and partially because they were in foul trouble we wanted to take it right to them because they were less apt to block those shots and we got some easy buckets because of it.”

White finished with 13 points while Campbell scored 14 — nine in the fourth quarter.

Junior Christopher King led Schenck with 16 points.

Jason Thompson hit three of his first four shots of the night to help stake Schenck (9-2) to its 10-point lead late in the first quarter.

But the 6-foot-2 junior picked up his second foul with 5:16 left in the first half, then drew his third and fourth fouls within a 77-second span midway through the third period to limit his effectiveness, though he finished with 15 points, 18 rebounds and four assists.

Dexter used two 3-pointers — one from each corner — by Simcock and a third shot from distance by Chandler Perkins to carve into its early deficit during the second quarter, with the Tigers also holding Schenck without a field goal over the last 6:41 of the period to build a modest lead at the break.

A 3-pointer by Justin Thompson pulled Schenck within 24-22 to open the third quarter before the Tigers turned to their inside game — which produced an immediate 8-1 run good for a 32-23 cushion midway through the period,

Schenck got no closer than six the rest of the way.