Menu
BOYS BASKETBALL: Aggressive Dexter routs Malden 70-35
Senior Ethan Kincy put an exclamation point on the Dexter Bearcats’ convincing victory over Malden.
Kincy dunked for the first time in varsity action at the buzzer Friday night in the Bearcats’ 70-35 win over Malden at the Bearcat Event Center.
“He’s pretty excited about it. I know that,” Dexter coach Lloyd Hyten said. “It was a pretty good dunk. I know he felt bad about missing that one earlier (in the second half).”
Kincy didn’t play organized basketball until his junior year.
“If that kid would’ve been playing for six, seven, eight years like a lot of these kids, there’s no telling what he could’ve been,” Hyten said. “He does a good job. He comes in and works hard, even though he’s a senior that doesn’t get just a whole lot of playing time.”
Hyten had mixed feeling about the timing of the dunk.
“You know when it happened, we steal the ball, one pass to Ethan, one dribble and he dunks it. … I was real excited for him,” Hyten said. “Then, it hit me we were up by 30 something, and we’re dunking on them at the end. … I wish we had pulled the ball out but it happened so fast.”
A night after making 12 3-pointers in a 79-46 win over Richland, the Bearcats made only two against Malden.
“We didn’t shoot it outside quite as well, but I thought we were more active inside,” Hyten said. “Braxton (Foster) created several steals, got a lot of rebounds and just played (well).
“The intensity was there again, the aggressiveness. You know that’s all you can ask. If we keep doing that, I’ll take our chances.”
The Green Wave (0-5) held leads of 11-5 and 13-11 in the first quarter, but Dexter scored the period’s final six points to take a 17-13 lead into the second.
Seth Rogers scored seven of his 12 points and Nate Gargas had six of his eight in the first quarter.
“We’re falling into this same habit where we come out and play really hard and rebound at the beginning of the game,” Malden coach Cole McBroom said. “We did it against Kennett. We did it tonight, and then there’s something that happens, a break in the action, a timeout, end of the quarter, and we relax and lose focus. We don’t block out and we don’t rebound.”
The Bearcats (3-4) outscored Malden 20-6 in the second quarter to take a 37-19 halftime lead.
Foster scored seven of his 12 points and Eric Hahn scored five of his 11 in the quarter.
Malden allowed a 16-2 run in the second, which demonstrated a disturbing trend.
“The worst thing we do is we let our offense dictate our defense,” McBroom said. “If we’re scoring or getting to the basket, we’re sprinting back. We’re stopping the ball. When we don’t score, we don’t sprint back, and that’s on me as a coach.”
The Bearcats added six more points to their lead in the third quarter, holding an 18-12 scoring edge and taking a 55-31 lead into the final quarter.
Malden went 4 of 15 (27 percent) from the field in the third while committing eight turnovers.
The Bearcats ended the game with a 10-1 run. Garrett Henson scored six of his game-high 13 points in the final quarter.
Lonnie Hamilton paced Malden with 10 points, Coy Wade scored eight, and Tye Miller had seven.
The two teams will meet again in the first round of the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament at 12:30 p.m. Dec. 26 at Bloomfield High School. Dexter is the third seed, and Malden is seeded 14th.