BOYS BASKETBALL: Warriors knock off Nashville

The Warriors overcame a slow start offensively against Nashville on Thursday night with a big second quarter and a late 12-0 run in the fourth to finish off a 50-32 home win behind 21 points from Lomontay Daughtery.

Du Quoin trailed 10-4 after the opening 7 minutes of play, but outscored the Hornets 15-4 in the second period with the help of 6 points from Daughtery and 5 from Brian Winters.

Nashville kept pace in the third quarter despite a pair of threes by Winters, and were still in the game with just under five minutes to go, trailing 38-30.

At that point, the Warriors took command. Daughtery's bucket with 4:40 remaining in the game sparked DMS's 12-0 run. Alex Zimmerman added a pair of baskets during the spurt and Braeden Pursell and Daughtery had transition hoops off of turnovers.

"We have worked defensively all week, because I want to get to where we can play man-to-man, and we did tonight," said DMS coach Aaron Wright. "We switched in the middle of the first quarter to man, and I thought they started to struggle a little bit. I told the kids to grind it out, wear them down, and I think that's what happened tonight."

"We did well tonight, we had kids stepping up. I told the kids, competition makes you better, and we're starting to get competition in practice. Any five can step up and play, hopefully it'll make us better."

Daughtery's jumper with 2:32 made it a 20-point game and allowed Wright to empty the bench with 1:34 to go.

"Tay played about as good around the rim as he has all year," Wright said. "I told him you didn't take any ill-advised shots, you finished around the rim, you finished strong. He had at least 15 rebounds. It was an absolute total team effort tonight."

WInters added 11 points, 9 coming on three-pointers, and also had several assists running the team's offense.

"He's starting to be a captain on the floor," said Wright. "He knows what I want to do, and I trust him to make some adjustments on the floor and tell kids where to go."

Zimmerman finished with 6 points, Pursell and Jacob Green each had 4, Kadin Mays and Dajon Johnson both finished with 2.

DMS (9-2) hits the road next week with games on Monday at Chester and Thursday at Marion for their final contests of the calendar year.