BASKETBALL: Du Quoin doomed by ugly first half
</element><element id="paragraph-1" type="body"><![CDATA[A sluggish first half doomed Du Quoin in Nashville on Friday night as the Hornets grabbed sole possession of first place in the Southern Illinois River-to-River Conference's Mississippi Division with a 51-40 victory over the visiting Indians.
Du Quoin managed only ten first half points, due in part to poor execution and in part to stellar defense by Nashville.
"It's a tough place to play, we knew it would be coming in," said Indians head coach Gabe Sveda. "The thing is, we've got to understand when things don't get going early for us we can not fall apart, we've got to stick to the game plan and play as a team."
"In the second half, we did that," Sveda continued. "We talked about it at halftime and our kids did a good job of responding in the second half, I'm proud of them for that, but we can not go off on our own in the first half when we get down, especially to a good team like Nashville."
Three-pointers from Tyler Meyer, Sam Brown and Zack Fieber put the Hornets up 13-4, by the time two minutes had run off the second quarter clock, and Meyer and Fieber again connected from downtown before the half as turnovers and ill-advised shots haunted the Indians.
"We've been working really hard on ball movement, setting screens, waiting on screens, being more patient offensively. We did not do any of that in the first half," said Sveda. "We kind of went on our own and put up some tough shots, we can not do that."
J.C. Davis caught fire for Du Quoin in the third quarter, hitting three-pointers on three straight trips down the floor and with 2:20 left in the period the Indians had cut it to a four-point game. Donovan Holle and Brown had the answer again for the Hornets though, taking it to the hoop for easy buckets.
Meyer canned another three just before the end of the quarter to restore an eight-point Hornets lead at 34-26, and Du Quoin never got any closer.
Connor Wheeler's 19 led the way for the Indians, Davis added 15, Sam Gossett 4 and James Williams 2 as only four Du Quoin players got into the scoring column.
"We've got to understand that it's got to be five-for-one and play together," Sveda said. "We're making it tough, we've got to stick together."
Meyer led the Hornets with 16 points, Brown added 11.
The Indians (11-2, 3-1) host conference foe Anna-Jonesboro (6-7, 0-3) this Friday night before a showdown with unbeaten Trico (15-0) at Anders Gymnasium on Saturday night.