Palisade, The #1 ranked boys basketball team in 5A maintains their title, swatting Durango away like flies. On the night of Febuary 7th, the Dawgs delivered a dominant performance that reinforced their championship ambitions. They pulled away with a 57-24 win over the #43 ranked Durango. Behind disciplined defense and a balanced scoring effort, the game remained in Bulldog control. Junior Jax Bavor expressed that a huge momentum boost happened after halftime. Before halftime, player Todd Nordenson got called for a technical foul. “During halftime, the team got fired up and we came out into the third quarter with intensity.”
Basketball is like a puzzle, and the key to winning is finding the right piece to game plans. That piece for the Bulldogs was defense. Bavor explains, “We adjusted to their game plan by going into a zone, and that really stopped them and put an end to the game.” After spending most of his career as a scorer, Bavor said that game made him feel a shift in his role to be a facilitator. He said, “I really stuck to the passing game.” Even with his own role evolving, he made it clear who also altered the night’s trajectory, giving credit to his teammate Carter Hayward. “Carter Hayward hit a bunch of threes in the start of the game, that’s what really got us going.” The basketball team is trending in the right direction. One last statement made from Bavor when pressed about his goals was he wanted to play in the coliseum by the end of the season. That goal seems perfectly aligned with the Dawgs surge.
