Led by juniors Jasper Gibson and Campbell Reed the Dawson County Tigers men’s varsity basketball team opened the 2018-19 season with a dominating home win over the Flowery Branch Falcons in a non-conference match-up Nov. 15.

With an emphasis on the outside game, the Tigers ran away early as they built up a 26 – 3 first period lead driven by Reed’s, 14 first-period points as he went 4 for 4 from three-point territory and sank one from just inside the line on a beautiful fade-away jump shot.

Gibson took over the offense in the second, as he drove the lane for two buckets and then demonstrated his shooting ability, grabbing three of four three-pointers on the night to lead the Tigers into the break with 13 points in the period.

Solid inside play from Luke Chism and Eli Burrus, who added 14-points and 10-points respectively, rounded out the scoring for the Tigers as they took an overwhelming 58 – 8 lead by halftime.

“You can’t really make any adjustments on that” said Head Coach Chad Pittman at the half. “Just keep sharing the ball and keep playing hard.”

Flowery Branch came out with a more aggressive defensive plan in the third-period and was finally able to slow down the Tiger’s, limiting them to just 11 points in the third, but the Falcons offense could not break through a smothering Dawson County defense and continued to trail big at the end of the third as the score moved to 69 – 18.

Although the Falcons continued to take advantage of every scoring opportunity and added seven more to their total the Tigers played a possession style game to run down the clock and finished out the period with a solid 73 – 25 victory to start the season.

“For about a week now I felt that they were ready to play,” Pittman said after the game. “It was nice to see the energy.”