Bernie, Missouri – Bernie Mules hosted the Dexter Bearcats Friday evening for their annual Basketball Homecoming game and were defeated 66 – 54.
“When I first took over as head coach, Noah Kronk said to me, ‘you know coach I have played basketball for a long time and I have never beaten Bernie and that’s what I want,” stated head coach Josh Dowdy. “And it looked like he fought for it tonight defending Ellenburg.”
Kronk and his fellow Bearcats achieved that goal after trailing at half-time 31-30. Four Dexter athletes hit double digits.
“We got a win against Bloomfield earlier in the week and just wanted to keep that energy going,” stated Dowdy. “We challenged the kids all week to make a statement. We haven’t had a whole lot of wins, but we knew we were correcting some things along the way. We didn’t know if it was going to come tonight, but we thought it might even be next year to be honest. Man it was sweet and I am just so proud of these kids.”
Ethan Flowers tallied a game-high 22 points for Dexter including four 3-pointers. Jacob Pedigo paced Dexter with 15 points. Austin Chesser recorded 13 points including three treys and Jason Jarrell added 10 points for the Bearcats.
Dexter shot well from the charity stripe hitting 21 of the 24 free throws attempted. 18 of 20 came in the forth quarter alone.
“We tried to get the ball to our best free throw shooters,” commented Dowdy. “We shoot about 70% from the free throw line so it is definitely a strength of ours and comforting down the stretch when they start to foul.”
Brandon Sparks had a team-high 15 points before fouling out early in the fourth quarter. He also hit three treys for Bernie. Matt Vernon tallied 10 points including two 3-pointers.
Kronk and his teammates held Bernie’s leading scorer of the season thus far, Caleb Ellenburg, to just seven points.
“Noah started on him (Ellenburg) and when Noah needed a breather we brought in Pollock,” Dowdy said. “Our two football players came in there and played some defense.”
Dexter and Bernie are 3-1 in regular season SCAA play. Dexter will host Puxico on Tuesday, January 20th and Bernie will host Bloomfield. Game times are both 6:00 p.m.
Final Score Dexter 66, Bernie 54
Dexter 19 11 6 30 - 66
Bernie 15 16 8 15 - 54
Dexter (66) – Jason Jarrell 10, Jacob Pedigo 15, Austin Chesser 13, Ethan Flowers 22, Noah Kronk 6. FG 19, FT 21/24, F 11. (3-pointers: Ethan Flowers 4, Austin Chesser 3. Fouled Out: None),
Bernie (54) – Blake Gilmore 4, Matt Vernon 10, Login Wood 3, Brandon Sparks 15, Caleb Ellenburg 7, Alex Whitehead 3, Devin Trammell 9, Gavin Smith 3. FG 21, FT 3/5, F 20. (3-pointers: Brandon Sparks 3, Matt Vernon 2, Devin Trammell 2, Login Wood 1, Alex Whitehead 1. Fouled Out: Ellenburg, Sparks)
