Big surges help Dixon roll past Rochelle

DIXON – The first time Dixon and Rochelle met on the basketball court this season, it was a three-point win for the Dukes.

What a difference 10 days makes.

Dixon used a huge first-half run to build a big halftime lead, then pulled away in the third quarter for a 70-32 victory over the Hubs on Monday night at Lancaster Gym.

[ Photos from Dixon vs. Rochelle boys basketball ]

“We just kept the energy up the whole time,” senior forward Darius Harrington said. “Last time it was a closer game, but we were just looking to blow it out tonight. We noticed that they were tired, and we were just getting out and running. We were finding the guys that were cutting down low, then we have the confidence to dish it out to our teammates to knock down the 3-pointers.”

That offensive game plan worked well. The Dukes were driving to the basket or cutting along the baseline for point-blank shots early, then that opened up the perimeter in the second and third quarters.

Brody Bruns scored six straight points for Rochelle (0-5) late in the first quarter to cut the Dixon lead to 9-8 with 1:52 left, but the Dukes (6-1) got in the groove soon after. Harrington converted a three-point play on a basket cut, then when it looked like the Hubs were trying to run out the final minute of the quarter, Dixon forced a pair of turnovers that turned into a layup by Cullen Shaner and two free throws for Harrington.

Carson Lewis opened the second quarter with a 3 to get Rochelle within 16-11, but Brady Feit scored a layup on a baseline cut, then Harrington hit a 3 to ignite a 19-2 run to push the margin to 35-13 with 1:35 left in the first half.

“Recently, we haven’t been hitting shots, our percentage has been low, but in practices we keep hyping each other up, keep growing as a team, and today it showed,” sophomore Brody Nicklaus said. “We came out hot today, hit a lot of shots, and got a good win.

“Our coaches say we stack days, and every day we keep getting better. The energy came up big today. We’ve just been proving to a lot of people that we can really win games out there.”

Shaner’s walk-up 3 with two seconds left in the second quarter made it 39-20 at halftime, then Eli Davidson hit 3s to bookend a 14-0 run in the first 2:10 of the third quarter for a 53-20 lead.

The Dukes started hot in both halves, hitting 12 of their first 17 shots in the game, then six of their first seven shots to open the second half. They forced turnovers on Rochelle’s first four possessions of the third quarter and turned those into nine points.

“We were mixing it up with man and zone [defenses], and we did a great job with that tonight,” Shaner said. “We struggled last time against them, they just kept climbing back in it; we’d go up nine or 10 and they’d come back. But this time we put them away early, and they got tired.”

Dixon nabbed 10 steals on the night and scored 19 points off 13 Rochelle turnovers, and also dished 17 assists while turning the ball over just nine times.

Harrington, who scored a career-high 40 points in the first game against the Hubs at the Sycamore Strombom Tournament on Nov. 29, finished with 32 points, nine rebounds, three steals and two assists this time. Davidson had 10 points and two assists, Feit added eight points, and Nicklaus and Shaner each scored seven; Shaner also had seven assists, four rebounds and two steals, and Nicklaus dished three assists and nabbed three steals.

All nine players that saw the floor had a stat of some kind.

“It’s great to see that, because not everybody needs to score, not everybody needs to go out and fill the stat sheet. We need everybody to do their jobs, we need everybody to box out and rebound, make the hustle plays, just play great defense,” Shaner said. “That’s exactly what we need, and we got it tonight.”

Elijah Harley led Rochelle with eight points and two assists, Bruns added six points and six rebounds, and eight other Hubs scored either two or three points each. Brode Metzger was one of six players with two points, and he also added three rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.

“I just didn’t think we were ready to play tonight. I mean, they came out and it was 7-0 right away. Harrington’s really hard to guard as it is, and then when everybody else is getting loose too, it was just a snowball rolling downhill,” Rochelle coach Tim Thompson said. “We just didn’t look like we had a lot of pizazz out there, weren’t very good offensively or defensively, and Dixon was better and they just put it to us. They did a great job tonight, and it’s just one of those games where we’ve got to move on to the next one.”