Kennett uses second half run to get past Doniphan

Staff photo by Aaron Lynn Kennett's Jack Walls (5) puts a move on Doniphan's Taylor Smith

The Kennett Indians used one of their patented second half runs to pull out another victory Tuesday night. The Indians defeated the Doniphan Dons by a score of 69-49 in Kennett's final home game of the season and senior night. Doniphan pulled to within two-points of the Indians 1:11 into the second half. After that, Kennett went on a 16-point run that the Dons couldn't recover from.

From the 6:15 mark in the third quarter to the 5:32 mark in the fourth quarter, the Indians went on their run. Before Kennett's run, they had a slim 2-point lead. After the run, the Indians had blown the game open to an 18-point lead with five minutes left in the game (56-38). Kennett also came up with four steals during the run.

"I think their pressure really wore us down," said Doniphan coach Cory Russell. "We play seven guys and I think we got tired, but we're not going to use that as an excuse. We knew Kennett was going to come out and pressure us and that's what they do best. Along with that, we just couldn't hit shots in the second half."

Staff photo by Aaron Lynn Kennett's Dwight Usry (22) drives to the basket against Doniphan's Brian Patterson (33).

Jay Shavers was a key part of Kennett's run that opened up the game. Shavers had two steals, an offensive rebound, and two-points during the run.

"He was our energy," said Kennett coach Jim Vaughan. "When he came in, things changed right away. Call it a role or an assignment, whatever it is, Jay sure likes to do that. He likes to come off the bench and be that guy that makes us go a step faster and provide us with some energy. He was very exceptional at that tonight because we fed off of him. There is no doubt that the other kids saw what he was doing and they wanted to join in."

A big factor for the close first half was Doniphan's dominance in the rebounding game.

"We knew coming over here that Kennett is a great team," Russell said. "When you win the battle of the boards, you give yourself a good chance to win. We really preached that in the last couple of days at practice and today before the game. We really had to block out and go get the ball because Kennett does a great job of rebounding the basketball."

The Don's had three offensive rebounds alone in the first quarter, compared to Kennett's four total rebounds in the first.

"In the first half we had nine rebounds total,"Vaughan said. "We had 38 last night against a bigger, faster, stronger team. That shows how much we competed last night and our lack thereof this evening. That's no discredit to Doniphan because those kids played hard and they competed. They just had way too many second chance points in the first half tonight. It was our lack of attention to detail. When a shot went up we didn't find, locate and lock-up. I though we corrected that and did a better job in the second half. We had a body on a body when a shot went up, contested things and fought for things a lot harder."

Early in the game, Doniphan's game plan was to crowd the lane and make the Indians beat them with perimeter shooting.

"We talked about making Kennett shoot from the outside," Russell said. "If they were going to beat us, they were going to have to shoot the ball well from outside. I think we did a good job of containing penetration, especially on Fred Garmon and Randrick Caruthers. Kennett just stepped up in the second half and played well."

The Indians did come out hot from behind the arc by hitting two early 3's against Doniphan's defense. However, there were some misfires throughout the half, until the Indians closed out the final four-minutes by sinking 3 more 3's to finish the half with a total of five.

"We addressed the 3-point shooting at halftime," Vaughan said. "We reminded them how it didn't work out so well for us last night by continuing to throw those up there. Tonight it wasn't so much on the move, but we had such a stand still offense in the half court. I think sometimes they got tired of seeing others stand around and shot it because there was nothing else to do. We took way to many 3's without movement. When you do that to a defense they are going to be in pretty good rebounding position. Those are going to end up as empty possession's when your not making the shot."

The same as Poplar Bluff did last night, the Don's tried to slow down Kennett in transition and make them play more of a half court set. The game plan worked when the Indians struggled with outside shooting during the middle of the first half.

"They tried to defend our penetration and we didn't change sides of the floor very well," Vaughan said. "You have to do that to get somebody out of position a little bit and you have to move the ball sharper. We didn't do either of those things in the first half. The less we have to play in the half court the better off we are."

The Indians definitely stepped up their play in the second half though. Kennett outscored the Don's 33-19 in the second half, had more pressure on the ball, and took the edge in the rebounding game.

"Our energy and effort on both ends of the floor was not particularly up to par in the first half," Vaughan said. "We seemed a little disinterested early. I don't know if we were tired from the game last night, but that shouldn't matter this time of year. You've got to put the effort out there and we didn't do that in the first half. The neat thing about these kids is that if you just talk about it and challenge them a little bit, there will be a response. They have that kind of grit about them."

Kennett had two players reach double figures in scoring with Shavers leading at 14-points and Garmon finished with 11-points.

Doniphan also had two players get into double digits with Taylor Smith leading at 17-points and Brian Patterson finishing with 15-points.

The Indians will close out their season on the road against the Charleston Blue Jays and New Madrid County Central Eagles. The junior varsity game will start at 3pm on Saturday in Charleston and the game in New Madrid will be next Tuesday with a girls varsity game starting at 5pm. Going into the District Tournament, Kennett is the #1 seed while NMCC is #2 and Charleston is #3.