The Dawson County High School varsity Tiger basketball team picked up a huge Region 7-AAA win over Lumpkin County Jan. 6 by a 49-44 score before falling to Fannin County, 43-34 on Friday.

Both games were played in Dawsonville.

Dawson County currently stands at 4-15 overall and 1-5 in region play.

Up next for Coach Thad Burgess' team was a trip to West Hall (2-11; 1-4) yesterday.

Scores were unavailable at press time. The Tigers will not play again for the next 10 days.

Against Lumpkin County, Tiger Logan Crumley had a big first quarter. He scored six points as Dawson County took a slim 12-11 first quarter lead.

Dawson County continued to add to that lead in the second quarter with five different Tigers entering the scoring column. The Tigers took a 24-17 advantage into halftime.

Jackson Morgan opened the second half nailing two huge three-pointers to help Dawson County extend its lead to 35-26 after three quarters of play.

Morgan led all Tigers in scoring with 13 points in the game.

The Tigers sealed the win from the free throw line. The team went 7-for-9 from the charity stripe in the final quarter.

Freshman Cullen Reed hit 5-for-6 of those free throws, to help pick up Dawson County's first region win of the year.

"It was important to get the win against Lumpkin," Burgess said. "It was a big game in the community and for our players. Our defense was better and we were able to gain some confidence."

Scoring, in addition to Morgan, for Dawson County were: Levi Whitmire-10, Logan Crumley-nine, Reed-five, J.T. Eggert, Dylan Nix and Brandon Abbot scored four points each.

In Friday's home game against Fannin County the Tigers used their signature 3-2 match-up defense to confuse the Rebels in the first quarter to take an 11-4 advantage. Reed had a big first quarter. He scored seven points in the period. Reed finished with eight points in the contest.

Turnovers were an issue for Dawson County all evening. It was evident in the second quarter as costly mistakes allowed Fannin to get back in the game and outscored the Tigers 12-8 to trim the lead to 19-16 at halftime.

Fouls also contributed to Dawson County's troubles in the first half as the Tigers picked up 12 team fouls to the Rebels four.

For the game Fannin hit 14-of-21 free throws while the Tigers were only sent to the charity stripe six times. The Tigers converted three of those.
Dawson County came out in the third quarter and continued to fight. The Tigers took a five-point lead 29-24 by the end of the period.

The fourth quarter saw the Tigers with several mental mistakes, poor shot selections and turnovers as their lead evaporated.

Fannin County was patient on offense, which frustrated the Tigers before eventually taking the lead with 3:53 remaining.

Leading the scoring for the Tigers was Whitmire with 12 points. Whitmire was followed in scoring by Reed with eight points; Eggert and Morgan added six points and Nix added two points.

"I thought our defense was good till a stretch early in fourth quarter against Fannin when we just couldn't score offensively and got careless with the ball. You have to score more than 34 points to have a chance to win," Burgess said.

Brandon Jordan led Fannin in scoring with 20 points.

Up next will be a trip to Banks County on Jan. 23.