Wolves outduel Dunham, 54-49
Redemptorist took an 8-7 lead early in the first quarter and never trailed again as the Wolves collected a 54-49 victory over The Dunham School in a hard-fought District 7-2A game on Tuesday night at Dunham.
Dunham cut a 20-11 deficit to 22-20 and trailed by only 25-21 at the half. The Tigers never trailed by more than seven points in the second half, and had several chances to go ahead or tie late in the fourth quarter, but they could never quite pull even.
The Wolves avenged an earlier loss to the Tigers to remain close to the top in the district. Redemptorist ran its record to 15-11, 9-3 in the district; Dunham fell to 23-7, 10-2.
“This was a great atmosphere,” Redemptorist coach Tim Waller said. “Give a lot of credit to Dunham. They had a great game plan. And give credit to my guys. They did a good job sticking to our game plan.
“We just kept working, kept grinding, and hoped to have a chance to win it and we were fortunate to do that,” he said.
The Wolves were able to control the game largely through the efforts of Kris Allmon and Gervaughn McGhee. Although the Tigers held McGhee to 18 points, the first and third quarters were mostly McGhee’s as he scored seven points in both quarters and dominated the defensive boards.
Allmon, meanwhile, seemed to come up with a big basket or big free throw when Redemptorist needed, and he made a huge defensive play with 31.5 seconds left in the game when he stripped the ball away from Jonathan Honore and then made two free throws to give the Wolves a 51-46 lead.
“Kris is a junior and I’ve been preaching to him all season to be a leader, be a floor general,” Waller said. “He definitely did that tonight. He was our leader on the floor when things got tough.”
The Tigers made one last charge in the final minute but came away scoreless before Honore got a shooter’s bounce on a 3-point field goal with 15.5 seconds left, but Taylor Armstrong made a free throw and Dunham couldn’t score again.
Dunham coach Jonathon Pixley called the game a team loss.
“We just lost the game,” he said. “People may want to blame it on whatever, but they beat us.
“We didn’t make shots, and we didn’t guard the dribble very well. But the big thing is, Redemptorist just played better tonight.”
Honore and Zach Padgett were the leading scorers for Dunham with 16 points apiece.
The game started on a physical note when Dunham guard Dylan Maggio took an elbow to the face that had Pixley calling for a flagrant foul. Maggio was out of the game for most of the first quarter. His replacement, Sean Blume, came off the bench hot and nailed a 3-pointer to fire up the Tigers.
Another player off the bench, eighth-grader Drake Davis, also made a big contribution in the second quarter as he battled McGhee on the inside.
“He (Davis) is very athletic and very energetic,” Pixley said. “He does that every game. When he comes in the game he provides a spark.”
Davis came off the bench again in the second half and brought the crowd alive with a slam dunk off an assist by Padgett late in the third quarter.
McGhee was held to two points in the second quarter and piced up his third foul on a charge with 1:07 left in the first half. He picked up his scoring again in the third quarter and answered Davis’ dunk at the end of the quarter to put the Wolves ahead 50-45.