Dallas boys rally to beat Lebanon

“I thought we didn’t play our best game of basketball but we still came away with the win,” said head coach Jordan Sollman. “So it was nice getting an important win against Lebanon and I thought our guys did a good job in practice leading up to the game.”

Coven Rotter led the Dragons with 15 points followed by Cole Ratzlaff’s 14 and William Ronco’s 10 off the bench.

The first quarter set the tone for the game as neither team separated by more than three points. A Warrior free throw gave the visitors the edge 9-8 going into the second.

Although Ronco scored the last four points of the half for the Dragons, the home team was still down going into halftime 21-18.

“I thought we had a lot of great shots that just didn’t go down,” said Sollman. “That was really the conversation at halftime, we weren’t making our shots and were only down three. So I think that gave them a little confidence in knowing that we were right there; we just needed to convert on our open looks.”

Lebanon’s lead got up to five in the third quarter but an 8-1 Dallas run gave the Dragons their first lead since the first quarter. The Dragons grew their lead up to four at the end of the quarter after back-to-back scores from Bean Newman and Zanden McMahill made the score 39-35.

“I thought we moved the ball a lot better on offense in the second half,” said Sollman. “Will (Ronco) came in when some guys were dealing with foul trouble and gave us some really good looks on offense. Which helped spark our run in the beginning of the second half.”

The Warriors pulled back within one in the final quarter. Isaiah Mosley and Ratzlaff combined to score four points pushing the lead back to five. From there, the Dragons made all but two free throws in the final minute and a half which helped preserve their lead for the rest of the contest. A last-second half court buzzer beater was not enough for the Warriors, as the Dragons won by two, earning their second conference win.

Next for Dallas will be a home game against Silverton on Jan. 26 with tip-off at 7 p.m.

“I believe in our guys,” said Sollman. “If we’re competing the way I know we can be, if we’re playing as a team and doing the little things correctly I think we can be in a game with anybody. So if you look at this next stretch for us it’s important that we do all those things if we want to try and get some more wins in some really competitive games.”