Friday's Boys Prep Basketball: Tribe speeds to 7-0 start
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[The final River-to-River Conference trip to Du Quoin turned out to be a short one for Chester High School's Boys Basketball team.
To no one's surprise, the host Indians raced to a convincing victory, 73-35, and secured its first 7-0 start since 2002.
What proved the most surprising, however, was the fact both the varsity and junior varsity contests combined last barely 2 1/2 hours.
To be official, the final varsity second ticked off the Anders Memorial Gymnasium scoreboard clocks at 8:58 p.m.
Counting halftime, pre-game and between game activities, the actual playing time for each battle was a little more than 65 minutes.
"It was a pretty quick night and I felt like we pretty well took care of business in a fast manner," Indians coach Mike Crews said. "At times, we probably played a little too fast."
Du Quoin's tenacious fullcourt pressure defense forced 18 Yellowjackets (2-6, 0-2) turnovers in the opening two quarters and some 33 for the game. The Tribe led 39-13 by halftime and Crews substituted freely from midway through the opening period on.
Jamor Reed and J.C. Davis both struggled from the floor, combining to hit just 1-of-9 field goal tries, but the tandem did combine for 14 steals and 13 assists.
David Rose and Logan Schneider each enjoyed 12-point and seven rebound efforts. Matt Gossett (11 points, 10 boards) posted another double-double. Among Logan Carson's eight points was his seventh slam dunk of the season, which thrust an unenergized crowd back to life early in the fourth quarter. 6'6 junior Sam Kuhnert was also strong off the bench, adding eight poins.
"A lot of times in a game like this you tend to focus on some of the negative stuff," Crews said. "We probably didn't rebound as well as we liked but I thought the effort was there. We certainly can and will play better, but give Chester and coach (Robert) Bell a lot of credit, their kids played hard for all 32 minutes and really refused to quit."
Chester bounced back from Friday's loss and handled 1,800 student Herculaneum, Mo. by 20 points at the Perryville, Mo. Shootout Saturday afternoon.
The Indians visit red-hot Pinckneyville (5-2, 2-0) Tuesday night.
Du Quoin (2-1, 1-1) built a 30-point lead by late in the first half and romped past Chester 71-39 in Friday's preliminary contest.
Sam Gossett and James Williams each 13 points with Seth Baxter adding 11. In all, a dozen different Indians scored at least two points.
Du Quoin 73, Chester 35
Chester 04 09 08 14-35
Du Quoin 21 18 09 25-73
CHESTER (2-6, 0-2)
Adams 0 0-2 0, Straight 0 1-2 1, Barthol 2 0-0 4, Lochead 3 5-5 11, Hamilton 1 0-0 2, Grah 2 0-0 4, Chandler 3 2-2 8, Dudenbostel 1 0-0 2. TOTALS 13 9-12 35.
Du QUOIN (7-0, 2-0)
Davis 0 0-0 0, Carson 4 0-1 8, D. Rose 5 2-2 12, Clarry 3 0-0 7, Reed 1 2-2 4, C. Rose 1 0-0 2, Williams 2 0-0 4, S. Gossett 1 0-0 2, Baxter 1 0-0 3, Schneider 5 2-2 12, Kuhnert 2 4-4 8, M. Gossett 5 0-0 11.
TOTALS 31 10-13 73.
THREE-POINTERS: Du Quoin 3 (Clarry, Baxter, M. Gossett). TEAM FOULS-Du Quoin 12, Chester 17.