Donettes, Dexter take aim at district title

DEXTER — The season has taken two different paths for the girls basketball teams at Doniphan and Dexter.

This winter, both teams started off hot heading into the Twin Rivers Lady Royals Christmas Classic.

Dexter entered the fray 6-1, won its first two round games, and then dropped tough decisions to a pair of quality teams in East Carter and Neelyville.

The Lady Bearcats found themselves 10-5 overall a few weeks later, but then injuries and ailments crept in and a schedule full of tough opponents sent them to 13-13 heading into the postseason.

Dexter, the host and No. 4 seed, will tip off the Class 4 District 1 tournament with No. 5 Perryville at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday.

The winner advances to play top-seeded Doniphan (24-2) at 5:30 p.m. Thursday and will play a Donettes team that went to the LRCC unbeaten, left it as champions, and kept rolling with the exception of a road defeat at Mountain View-Liberty and at home against Class 1 District 2 champion South Iron.

“We are still trying to figure things out,” Dexter head coach Eric Sitze said. “Caitlin (Giles) is trying to come back and play. We need to take care of the ball a little bit better, shore up our defense, and be a little more efficient on offense.

“(Giles) is trying to play on (a torn ACL) but she is definitely not 100 percent. She played quite a few minutes against Saxony, so she is doing all right on it.”

Sitze said he is worried about potentially seeing Giles add more complications to the knee.

“But, she really wants to do this,” Sitze said. “She is a tough kid. We’re going to let her try. She is still one of my better players out there and does a lot of good things for us. She really helps with our interior defense and rebounding. It will be harder for her to post up (on offense).

“We’ve made some improvement, (but) we’re just a little inconsistent. (Dexter) is resilient — they are out there still trying and are coachable. We’ve had a good season and did some good things. We are just trying to build on what we’ve done this year and finish our season strong.”

Doniphan owns a 40-36 road win against Dexter, who was without Giles, who suffered her injury prior to that game.

The Donettes move into the district tournament off a dramatic 57-53 overtime win over Jackson Friday to end the regular season.

“We won’t play until Thursday so we have a little longer break than everyone else,” Doniphan head coach Adam Epps said. “Everyone has double-digit wins and nobody has a losing record.”

Epps noted his respect for Giles’ toughness and said if the two teams match up, her presence will “make scoring a little different,” just based on the Dexter senior’s ability to control the paint defensively.

“She does a great job of anchoring that matchup zone that they do,” Epps said. “They also beat Oran without her and Oran has good size too.”

Epps won the first game against Dexter without starting catalyst senior guard McKenna Monaghan at full strength as she battled a shoulder injury.

“We made some key stops late,” Epps said. “We were down for a while and in the fourth quarter (but) we settled down and took care of the ball better.”

Epps has been pleased with the late spate of games his team has played, which also included wins over a tough Chadwick squad and Saxony Lutheran.

“All those are good tests before going into it,” Epps said. “If we play like we’ve been playing and get a few others going offensively that will only help us. This time of year, you don’t know who is going to show up to play.”

Dexter will find out Tuesday as Sitze gets ready for Perryville.

“(Perryville) has a really good scoring guard, so we are going to have to do a good job guarding her and play a good defensive game if we have a chance to beat them,” he said. “This time of year you have to bring your best game every night or you can go home. Hopefully we give ourselves a chance to win at the end of the night.”

CLASS 4 DISTRICT 1 Tournament

At Dexter

Girls

FIRST ROUND

Tuesday

No. 4 DEXTER (13-13) vs. No. 5 Perryville (16-10), 5:30

No. 3 Fredericktown (15-10) vs. No. 6 Kennett (17-9), 7

SEMIFINALS

Thursday

No. 1 DONIPHAN (24-2) vs. Dexter/Perryville winner, 5:30

No. 2 Saxony Lutheran (12-12) vs. Fredericktown/Kennett winner, 7

CHAMPIONSHIP

Saturday

Semifinal winners, 2