The Dawson County Tigers set the tone from the opening buzzer of their rivalry game with the Lumpkin County Indians on Dec. 18 as they scored 8 unanswered points in the first minute on their way to an 88–43 victory.
After junior Eli Burruss started the game with 3 points from the corner, the Tiger defense forced back-to-back turnovers from the Indians that allowed junior Jasper Gibson to add 3 points of his own and allowed senior Luke Chism to force his way inside for 2.
Lumpkin County managed 2 points to end the rally but continued to find themselves swarmed by the Tigers’ two-man press defense and their points came few and far between during the quarter.
On both ends of the court senior Ahmad Kamara won the rebound battle, and the Tigers continued to score at will with Gibson adding another shot from the perimeter as Burruss moved inside for points.
Junior Campbell Reed dropped a shot from the 3-point line, and fellow junior Bryson Broadway came off the bench with 4 points to give the Tigers a commanding 26–14 lead at the end of the first.
Gibson remained red hot from the 3-point line in the second period, adding 2 more to his total, but Chism’s aggressive lane play was the story of the quarter as he drove the net at will and racked up 10 of his team high 29 points on the night.
The Indians found little success from any corner of the floor as the Dawson County defense remained a stone wall, limiting Lumpkin County to 13 points in the quarter, and the Tigers extended their lead to 48–27 at the half.
Dawson County switched to a perimeter shooting game to open the second half as Gibson, Reed, Chism and junior Tate Adkins all demonstrated their accuracy by landing 3’s.
After the initial flurry of shots, the Tigers returned to the inside game and the Indians, once again, had no answer for Chism as he led Dawson County to 28 points in the third, outscoring Lumpkin County by 17 to put the game out of reach as the fourth quarter began.
With the starting lineup on the bench for the fourth period, Dawson County continued to take care of business holding the Indians to a meager 5 points while Broadway and Adkins added more points to the board.
Sophomores Mason Barnes and Max Tierney, along with junior Brody Howell and senior Trey Pruitt, rounded out the scoring for the Tigers as they put the lid on a dominating performance and capped off the win with a final score of 88–43.
In addition to Chism’s 29 points, two more Tigers finished in double digits for the night as Gibson posted 17 on the strength of his five 3-pointers, and Burruss put up 10 points from all over the floor.
Dawson County moved firmly into second place in the region as they improved their regional record to 3–1 and moved to 8–2 overall on the season.