BASKETBALL: Hornets hold of resilient Indians
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[Du Quoin trailed by only two at the half, but a barrage of three-pointers by the Hornets in the third quarter got Nashville out in front to stay in their 53-45 victory over the Indians at NHS Assembly Hall on Friday night.
Nine first-half points from both Cayle Diggins and John Galik aided in keeping the Indians around in the opening sixteen minutes. In the third quarter, however, Nashville put in three three-pointers along with a deep two in building a ten point cushion. Chance Reuter had two of the triples, the second of which made it 37-27 Hornets.
"(Nashville's) got some nice shooters, and we didn't want to leave those guys," said Du Quoin head basketball coach Gabe Sveda. "Sometimes we lost them a little bit, but Reuter stepped out and hit some really deep threes and that's tough. They executed, give them credit."
Still down ten, the Indians held for one shot at the end of the quarter and Jon Boss sank one from beyond the arc just before the horn sounded.
Du Quoin continued to build momentum in the fourth until Daulton Beltz's bucket with 4:35 to go in the game cut the Hornets lead to three, but Reuter responded with his third three-pointer from the top of the key and the Indians would get no closer.
"We didn't execute very well (offensively) in the first half," Sveda said. "They took some things away from us. We had to cut harder and use our screens, move the basketball, we were way too stagnant in the first half."
Diggins finished with 17 points to lead Du Quoin, Galik added 13, J. Boss 5, Brandon Williams 4, Da. Beltz and Austin Mansker 2 and Brenden Fred 1.
Devin Holle led all scorers with 19 points for Nashville (15-13, 8-2).
"I'm happy with our performance tonight coming back after a real tough game last Saturday," said Sveda. "They stayed positive, they played hard for thirty-two minutes."
"I thought we got better tonight, and we've got to use that as fuel and go forward from this game."
Du Quoin (12-16, 5-5) now awaits the results of Monday's Hamilton County-West Frankfort matchup at the Benton Regional before taking on the winner in Wednesday night's 7:30 p.m. semifinal.
The Class 2A Benton Regional Championship is scheduled for Friday night at 7:30 p.m. in Rich Herrin Gymnasium.
Nashville won the junior-varsity contest 54-53.
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