BASKETBALL: Quick start carries Du Quoin over Waltonville
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Du Quoin forced eight Waltonville turnovers in the first six minutes of the game and raced to a 70-35 dismissal of the Spartans on opening night of the 2010 Du Quoin Tip-Off Classic.
The crowd at Anders' gym saw the Indians jump ahead 22-3 after the opening quarter on their way to the first career victory for new head coach Gabe Sveda.
"It feels great," Sveda said after the win. "We've got to get a lot better, we've got to get some team chemistry going. At times we had it, and you've got to give all the credit to the kids, and to Waltonville, they came out in the second half and were still playing hard against us."
J.C. Davis and Connor Wheeler did most of the damage early on for DHS, with Wheeler connecting on a three as the Spartans had gone with a zone defense in the first quarter.
"Waltonville came out in a little bit of a gimmick defense, they played a box-and-one (zone) against us," Sveda said, "so we were standing around a lot, not moving, not running our offense like we were supposed to, but then the kids adjusted and did a good of coming together and finding the open man."
Waltonville got the first four points of the second quarter, but the Du Quoin defense made sure their success was short lived.
Sam Gossett put in buckets on back-to-back possessions, then James Williams sank a lay-up after a steal by Wheeler and a save and assist by Seth Baxter.
The Indians led 37-10 at the halftime break, and led by as many as 40 at one point in the contest.
Davis led the way with 16 points, Wheeler added a dozen. Baxter finished with 10, Gossett 8, Brandon Williams 7, Aaron Smith and Jesse McDicken 5, James Williams 4 and John Galik 3.
The Indians won the rebounding battle 27-20, and committed only 14 turnovers to Waltonville's 18.
Du Quoin connected on 20-of-50 (40%) shooting in the game while holding the Spartans to just five field goals (5-for-26).
The Tip-Off Classic continues on Friday with Benton taking on Waltonville at 6:30 p.m. and Du Quoin and Cairo to follow around 8:00 p.m. Benton topped Cairo 59-50 in Wednesday night's opening game.
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