{"id":107748,"date":"2015-12-10T20:06:37","date_gmt":"2015-12-11T03:06:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-outlasts-dolores-60-54\/"},"modified":"2015-12-10T20:06:37","modified_gmt":"2015-12-11T03:06:37","slug":"dove-creek-outlasts-dolores-60-54","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/dove-creek-outlasts-dolores-60-54\/","title":{"rendered":"Dove Creek outlasts Dolores, 60-54"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kyle
Kyle Biery finds an open shot in front of Scott Gatlin Tuesday night in Dolores.<\/span>Sam Green\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Dove Creek Bulldogs entered the fourth quarter with a 21-point lead over the Dolores Bears on Tuesday, but things got tense in a hurry.<\/p>\n

The Bears\u2019 pressure defense forced turnovers and they were able to convert on the other end to spark a 13-0 run to cut the Bulldogs\u2019 lead to eight with under four minutes to play.<\/p>\n

Dove Creek senior Jordan Ernst scored the team\u2019s first fourth-quarter points with a floater in the lane with 3:30 remaining to get the lead back to double-digits, but the Bears wouldn\u2019t go away.<\/p>\n

Dolores senior Josh McCoy hit a three to trim the lead to seven with under a minute left, then connected on another triple with 35 seconds left to pull the Bears within five, 56-51.<\/p>\n

After two free throws by Ernst, Dolores senior Kyle Biery banked in a three with just under 10 seconds left to draw the Bears back within striking distance at 58-54.<\/p>\n

But after being intentionally fouled, Ernst again stepped to the line and calmly knocked down two free throws to seal the game, giving Dove Creek a hard-fought 60-54 win.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe likes the pressure,\u201d said Dove Creek head coach Ty Gray. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it\u2019s the challenge or what, but he likes the pressure and he steps up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dove Creek went into halftime with a nine point lead, and extended the gap to 21 to start the fourth quarter, but Dolores would claw back to within four.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we were in the valley they fought their hearts out like that too, and same thing tonight,\u201d Bears head coach Larry Schwartz said. \u201cThey don\u2019t quit, they\u2019ll play for four quarters. I\u2019m proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gray said the Bulldogs came into the game hoping to dominate the boards and get the ball inside, and with 25 offensive rebounds gave they had ample second-chance opportunities to score.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t box out well in the first half,\u201d said Schwartz. \u201cDove Creek is a big, physical team and they got us on the boards. We\u2019ve just got to do a better job of boxing out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beau Hemphill led the Bulldogs with 13 rebounds and scored 10 points, Ernst finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds and Dante Gallegos added nine points and 11 boards. Freshman Ryan Delano led the team in scoring with 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m hoping he\u2019s the piece that can help bump us to that next level this year,\u201d Gray said of Delano.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe is that additional ball-handler we have now, so if Jordan is out of the game or whatever, just like tonight, he can handle the ball. And he can shoot the ball, so that\u2019s another addition for us,\u201d Gray said.<\/p>\n

McCoy led Dolores in scoring, netting 10 of his 20 points in the final quarter. Jalen Balderrama added 12 for the Bears, Biery scored 10, and Tristen Medina finished with nine.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

back from 21-point 4th-quarter deficit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":107749,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[44],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-107748","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-dolores"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107748","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107748"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107748\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/107749"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107748"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107748"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107748"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=107748"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}