Sweatbees Beat Sweetwater 45-40 To Secure Bye at TMSAA Sectionals
January 30, 2020
Lenoir City, TN -- Dayton City School beat Sweetwater 45-40 in a very exciting win to claim the championship of the Area Three AA Post Season Tournament and now head to play at Anderson County with a bye in the new State Tournament structure. Winning at Anderson County will send the Bees to Murfreesboro for chance to win the State. Dayton City received a bye with their win and will play on Wednesday, February 5th at 5:00 pm at Anderson County High School. With the wins in the tournament the DCS boys basketball team ran their season record to 20-3.
Dayton pushed out to early lead on strength of opening corner three by Kyler and follow-up two by Bryce Dupre in the first minute of play. Ethan Davis snuck in for lay-in to put Bees up 7-2 with 3:47 left in first. With 1:55 left in first, Rex Pendergrass began his first half outburst with three point jumper from head of the key to give DCS a 10-3 lead. Bees finished with 12-5 lead after one quarter of Play. Bryce Dupre had nice first quarter with four defensive rebounds and he anchored the defense down low.
Pendergrass nailed a three to open the second quarter to push the lead to 15-5 for DCS. With five minutes remaining in the second quarter, Rex Pendergrass drove to basket for bucket to move the Bees to 19-9 lead. Pendergrass finished up a huge run with a long three from almost half court for a 25=12 lead. With 35 seconds left in second quarter, Pendergrass hit a short jumper for his 17th point, to put the Sweatbees up 31-20, the halftime score.
Sweetwater came out with strong third quarter to cut the Dayton lead to 32-26 with two minutes remaining. DCS held on for 34-29 lead after three quarters.
Bees began 4th with a pair of baskets by Ethan Davis, DCS had two consecutive turnovers forced. Bryce Dupre and Rex Pendergrass each came up with steals to give Davis the opportunity to score and he finished strong on both baskets for the 38-29 lead with 5:02 left in the quarter.
Chris Alford with two baskets and Wyatt McClure with one led a comeback by Sweetwater to cut the DCS lead to 41-35 with 1:29 left in fourth quarter. A corner three by Tucker Lorenz cut the DCS lead to 43-38 with 46 seconds remaining in quarter. Blaine Watson next came up with steal and feed Alford for basket to draw Sweetwater to within 43-40 with 32 seconds remaining. DCS scored a late basket and held on for an exciting 45-40 win.
Rex Pendergrass lead all scorers with 20 points, with 17 coming in tremendous first half and Ethan Davis joined Pendergrass in double figures with 14 points, including 7 in the final quarter. Also scoring for DCS were Bryce Dupre with 8 points and Kyler Akin with 2 points.
Dayton City next plays at Anderson County High School on Wednesday against winner of Jefferson and Sullivan North. A win will send them to a Thursday game at 6 pm against winner of Robertsville Middle vs Colonial Heights/Meigs Winner. Championship game at Anderson County High School will be on Saturday, February 8th at 3:30 PM.
