Clinton’s fiery ‘D’ propels Dragons to ‘W’ against Eagles
A stingy defense helped the Clinton High School boys basketball team propel itself to a win for the first time this season early last week.
The Dragons (1-2) shut out Powell’s First Baptist Academy in the first quarter of its 54-32 victory on Tuesday, Nov. 21, at the Don W. Lockard Gymnasium.
Clinton jumped out to a 7-0 lead after the opening frame and held the Eagles to single digits in three quarters en route to picking up its first win of the season.
“It was like our two Hall of Fame Games (losses to William Blount and Powell) — we played well defensively, but we had trouble scoring,” CHS Coach Chris Lockard said. “We shut them out in the first quarter.
“But the problem was, we only had seven.”
The Dragons would eventually find their shooting touch and would pull away as they outscored First Baptist 15-8 in the second stanza, opening a 22-8 advantage by halftime. After an evenly-matched third quarter where each team scored 19 points, the Dragons closed out the contest with a 13-5 run over the final eight minutes.
Despite seeing his team struggle to find its firepower over its first three games of the new season, Lockard doesn’t appear to be all that concerned. He knows help is coming when his football players join the basketball team after making a run to the TSSAA Class 5A quarterfinals.
“Once we got up by 20 or 21, I was able to get our young kids in, some freshmen that I dressed for this game,” Lockard said. “We don’t quite have our roster set just yet.
“We’re missing three starters and a couple of role players that will be back out some time this week. I had three freshmen that played in this game and I was really pleased with our defensive effort. They (the Eagles) have some good players, but they really don’t have any depth or anything. But they really play hard and they’re really scrappy.”
Clinton’s Kaden Ison had a team-high 19 points as he went 8-for-9 from the field en route to posting a double-double, as he also grabbed 10 rebounds.
Lebron Booker added 16 points, eight rebounds, two steals and one assist for the Dragons.
