Dan River boys throttle Generals for Dogwood win

RINGGOLD — Coming out of the locker room with an 11-point lead, Dan River coach Jacob Gruse was grateful just to have a lead, based on his team’s lackluster performance in the first half.

And once the team finally got things running, it was no holding the Wildcats back.

Terrence Womack scored 17 points, including three huge 3-pointers down the stretch, and Dan River used an explosive second half to pull away from William Campbell to win its Dogwood opener 78-48 Wednesday night.

Reggie Stone and Darren Evans each had 11 points, five rebounds and three assists for the Wildcats.

Timothy Wright led the Generals with 15 points and five rebounds. Younger finished with 11 points.

Dan River (6-0, 1-0 Dogwood) came out of the gates slow, unlike its first five games where the first quarter was a launching pad for things to come. William Campbell’s game plan of slowing the tempo down worked initially, leading to a 4-4 tie midway through the first quarter.

“It was pathetic the way we started the game,” Dan River coach Jacob Gruse said. “That team could have easily put us away in the first half and really made us pay if they had hit a couple more shots.”

The shots, however, did not fall for the Generals (0-4, 0-1 Dogwood), as the Wildcats claimed the lead at 6-4 and never relinquished it for the rest of the night.

“We finally realized that they couldn’t guard us,” Womack said. “They’re an athletic team, but in my eyes, we’re more athletic, and we took that to use and we put them away.”

The closest William Campbell came after the first quarter was 23-17 midway through the second quarter following a Terrence Younger 3-pointer. Following that, the Wildcats closed on a 10-5 run that expanded the lead to 11 at the half.

“To be honest with you, we were not ready for their quickness and speed,” William Campbell coach Michael Cheek said. “They were a step quicker than us. We threw a little man-jump press in, (and we) weren’t ready to run it against a quick team like that.”

After a frantic opening to the third quarter that saw the teams trade baskets for the first three minutes, the Wildcats opened it up, thanks to the inside play of Charles Warren and R.J. Myers. Warren scored eight of his 14 points in the third quarter and Myers scored all six of his points to open up the fourth quarter as Dan River took control.

“We came out not focused,” Warren said. “We should have come out more focused than we did.”

The sense in the Dan River locker room was that once the better teams in the Dogwood come calling, the Wildcats will need to show improvement every game, especially with a large portion of the schedule still remaining, including the Register & Bee Shootout.

“I think we just decided to start playing basketball,” Gruse said. “It seems like our team — the more steals, the more deflections we get — the harder we play, and it just rolled over to a nice little victory for us tonight.”