Outside shooting pushes Lions past Cobras

JESSIEVILLE -- Three Jessieville Lions combined for 33 points in a 55-43 win over the Fountain Lake Cobras Thursday night at Jessieville Sports Arena.

Sawyer Lamb led the Lions with 12 points and eight rebounds, Steven Benson added 11 with eight rebounds and Braxton Shifflett finished 10 points.

Fountain Lake was led by Joe Murphy with 12 points, and Parion Johnson added eight with five rebounds.

The Lions took control of the game early, but the Cobras were able to fight to maintain a 12-11 deficit after the first quarter. The Lions doubled their score in the second while allowing just three points to take a 24-14 lead at the break.

Jessieville dominated the court in the second half, scoring 31 points to increase its lead. The Cobras staged a comeback in the fourth period, putting up 21, but it was not enough to earn them the win.

Jessieville head coach Eddie Lamb was pleased with his team's effort for the most part.

"We played solid tonight for three and a half quarters," he said. "That first half, we didn't shoot it very good. We had 24 points, but the second half we hit two or three pretty quick and opened it up to 14, 16, and maybe one time got up as much as 20. We played pretty good basketball."

Lamb noted that free throw shooting was down in the game, as his team only hit 50 percent of their shots from the charity stripe.

"We've got to do something about free throws," he said. "Hopefully by February we'll be a 70 percent free throw shooter. I would take 60 right now, but we need to be 70-75 come tournament time. That's something the kids just got to put some time in and work on."

Fountain Lake head coach Jake Dettmering was impressed with his team's tenacity, despite having players that were outmatched in height.

"We're giving them some height against those guys," he said. "We're probably 5-8 across the board, and we're playing 6-foot plus. I thought my kids played hard. We had some missed executions that were mental. Some of it was them hitting shots and their length. They had a little more length on us. They altered some shots and got some shot blocks, especially in the first half."

Dettmering added that his post players are starting to come into their own, but there is still plenty of progress to be made.

"We need to get our post going," he said. "They're starting to show some signs of life, but they do bring us some size. I'm just waiting on it to click with them on a consistent basis."

Both coaches were impressed with their opponents.

"Coach Dett, one of my former players, his kids didn't give up," Lamb said. "They plugged it to the end and gave effort to keep plugging. I'm proud of the way they kept fighting."

"We played a good team," Dettmering said of the Lions. "They can really score. Whenever they can shoot the three like they can, they can spread the floor with all their shooters, it makes it hard defensively."

The Lions travel to Centerpoint Friday night for a rematch of last year's Class 3A first round playoff matchup won by the Knights. Fountain Lake hosts Bismarck Friday night.

Sports on 12/08/2016

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