Dodge City Boys Control West in Second Half; Advance to Sub-state Final

Dodge City, KS (westernkansasnews.com) The Dodge City High School boys basketball team struggled in the first half without their star post player Noah Williams, but were able to step up their game another level in the second half for an easy 53-42 win over Wichita West in the first round of sub-state.

Boys Highlights

Dodge opened up a 13-6 lead, but then found themselves trailing 17-13 in the second quarter only to rattle off 5 in a row on a three pointer from Senior Guard Caden Walters before the buzzer sounded for halftime.

The Red Demons were very aggressive in the second half, using their transition game off West turnovers to get easy points.  Bryce Unruh poured in a game high 22 points, his best output of the season on 8 of 14 shooting.  Dayton McGroarty added 15 and Dodge rebounded even with West in the second half after trailing 18-10 off the boards in the first half.

West was led by Elijah Horton who scored 20 in the loss.  Dodge City shot 73 percent at 11/15 in the second half bring their overall shooting up to 51 percent for the game.  West was held to 42 percent from the field.

DCHS Coach Dennis Hamilton’s Post-game Interview

For the first time in three years Dodge City is back in the sub-state final and will host rival Garden City (7-14).  

The Red Demons took both games this year 47-41 at home on February 8 and 79-48 on February 16th.  Since then the Buffaloes are playing much better getting back Senior Scott Schmidt and with an upset win at Liberal and win in the first round of sub-state Thursday night 72-63 against Wichita North.

Pre-game show for Saturday night’s sub-state final will be at 5:45, tip-off is at 6.  The game can be heard on Z98 and ESPN 99.9 or online at westernkansasnews.com.