Whole team contributes to Dixon victory

DIXON – As Darius Harrington continued his climb on the all-time Dixon scoring list, every single one of his teammates played a part in Saturday afternoon’s 65-47 win over Elk Grove at Lancaster Gym.

Harrington scored 29 points to pass Jacob Gaither for second place in the career points list. Harrington now has 1,565 points, and passed Gaither’s 1,559 with a driving layup with 3:53 left in the third quarter. He trails DHS all-time leader Beau Bailey (1,781) by 216 points, with 13 regular-season games left.

[ Photos of Dixon vs. Elk Grove boys basketball ]

But he was just as excited to see his teammates get in on the action. All 12 Dukes either scored or grabbed a rebound in the game, which wasn’t as close as the final score indicated. Dixon led 53-26 when coach Chris Harmann subbed out his regular rotation players with 6:52 remaining.

“Everybody getting that exposure, even if they don’t get a lot of playing time, will help us,” Harrington said. “We’re all going to get used to the game speed, the press, the offense. I think it’s good for the program to have that experience.”

“Getting games like this is good, getting everybody in. We’ve all got energy, we’ve all got good vibes,” Brody Nicklaus added. “We all hit the court tonight, and it was a great feeling.”

The Dukes (14-4) scored the first 15 points of the second quarter to turn a 16-10 lead into a 31-10 margin with 2:40 left in the first half. Nicklaus fed Brady Feit on a pair of drive-and-dish layups, then scored on the same play from Eli Davidson to end that surge. Harrington hit a 3, drove for a layup and scored on a putback as Dixon took control.

Cullen Shaner had a layup off his own steal to ignite that surge, and all five Dixon starters scored in the first half.

“In practice, we really work on swinging the ball and getting things moving; it just opens everything up,” Nicklaus said. “We’ve been working a lot on driving and kicking out; last game, we didn’t have too many, so today we really tried to focus on it, and it worked out well versus their zone.”

Dixon also picked up its defense in the second period. After Nolan Brand scored six points in the first quarter on drives to the basket, he was limited to just two shots – both misses – in the second. The Dukes outscored Elk Grove (2-15) 15-4 in the quarter to build a comfortable cushion.

“We really counted it down to No. 5 [Brand], he was doing all their scoring, so we kind of helped out more on that and tried to force other people into different shots,” Harrington said. “Also, rebounding was big; they got a few offensive rebounds early, so we started boxing out and getting some rebounds. Those were the little things that we adjusted there.”

Dixon controlled the pace of play in the middle two quarters, thanks to stingy defense and picking its spots to run on offense.

“We saw they had a lot of iso ball, going one-on-one, so we really just tried to focus and help,” Nicklaus said. “We say a lot in the locker room ‘bluff and stay home,’ and they were trying to kick it out, but we were able to get some good steals and get a lot of fast-break looks.”

Harrington also led the Dukes with seven points while dishing three assists, and Nicklaus added 10 points, three rebounds and a team-high four assists. Shaner stuffed the stat sheet with five points, three rebounds, three assists, two steals and a blocked shot, and Feit and Davidson (2 assists) each scored four points.

Zander Wilson and Armahn McGowan also finished with four points each for Dixon, and McGowan also had four rebounds and two assists. Jackson Koehler chipped in three points and four rebounds down the stretch.

Brand had 19 points and Cooper Casterton added 18 points and three steals for the Grenadiers, but 21 of those combined 37 points came in the final 5:47. Matt Novak added six points, seven rebounds and two steals, and Dan Pasterski chipped in two points and six rebounds, with team highs of two assists and two blocks.

“We’ve got a really young group, and it’s a lot of learning trial by fire,” Elk Grove coach Chris Rugg said. “So we’ve had to simplify some things, which helps our guys out but at the same time it allows other teams to make adjustments. But it’s all part of the process that we’re going through. We’ve got some juniors and sophomores in their first varsity experience this year, and they’re kind of feeling out what the game is like at this level.”