Dominant second half drives DC
Feb. 27—Daviess County High School's boys' basketball team stepped on the gas in the second half on Friday night.
Leading archrival Apollo by only five points at intermission, the Panthers opened the third quarter with a 13-0 run and cruised to a convincing 58-30 victory at the DCHS gymnasium.
"It took us a while to get going, but once we settled into the game I thought we played well," Daviess County coach Neil Hayden said. "This was a very good team victory.
"Cole Burch was huge for us, Max Dees did a really good job driving to the basket, and Joe Humphreys gave us a lot of production — when we get that from Joe, we're a different team."
The Panthers led 22-17 at halftime, then put together their tell-tale run to open the second half. Humphreys scored six points and Dees added five as DC raced ahead 35-17 with just over three minutes remaining in the third period.
Leading 39-22 heading into the final eight minutes, Daviess County (5-9) put the game away by scoring seven of the first nine fourth-quarter points to shoot in front 46-24 with 5:20 to play.
The Eagles (3-10) never got closer than 20 the rest of the way.
"We didn't put the ball in the basket, struggled to score," first-year Apollo coach Mark Starns said. "The shots just weren't falling for us.
"Also, we let our play on one end of the floor affect our play on the other end of the floor, and we can't do that. We've got to have two-way players."
Apollo took advantage of six DC turnovers to lead 11-7 at the first break, but Dees scored five points and Burch added four as DC put together a 15-6 second-period run to assume control.
"Defense was a point of emphasis entering the third quarter," Hayden said, "and I thought we went out and played pretty well at the defensive end."
Burch, who made 8-of-11 floor shots, finished with a game-high 19 points for Daviess County, adding eight rebounds and four steals. Humphreys produced 12 points and nine rebounds, and Dees had 12 points and four steals.
The Panthers went 21-of-39 from the field for 54%, made 11-of-16 free throws for 69%, outrebounded Apollo 30-24, and turned the ball over 12 times.
Apollo got 10 points and nine rebounds from Dan St. Claire, with Landon Hamilton also securing nine rebounds.
The Eagles were 12-of-39 from the field for 31%, made only 4-of-11 foul shots (36%), and committed 16 turnovers.
Both DC and Apollo play 9th District games at Owensboro in their next games. The Panthers visit the Red Devils on Saturday and the Eagles invade OHS on Tuesday.
APOLLO 11-6-5-8 — 30
DAVIESS COUNTY 7-15-17-21 — 58
Apollo (30) — St. Claire 10, Hamilton 8, Bowman 7, Kelly 3, Frantz.
Daviess County (58) — Burch 19, Humphreys 12, Dees 12, Johnson 3, Payne 3, Tomes 2, Renfrow 2, Stratton 2.
