DOWAGIAC — Trae Brookins had been in this situation before.

With two minutes left on the clock in the fourth quarter, and the Dowagiac Chieftains trailing South Haven 42-43, Brookins knew he needed to step up.

With 1:05 remaining, he sank a 3-pointer, as the crowd went wild. The momentum carried the Chieftains to a 49-43 victory over the Rams Tuesday night.

“I’ve been in this situation a lot, like when I was younger,” Brookins said of the final minutes of the game. “Now it’s becoming easy. As long as my team steps up, I’ll step up.”

With a slow start in the game, Dowagiac trailed South Haven 14-6 by the end of the first quarter.

A better effort in the second quarter from the Chieftains, specifically from seniors Cailyn Murphy, Brookins and Deimetrius Lanier, helped the team close the gap between with the Rams, as they headed into the locker room down 24-21.

“Our intensity and energy were a little low, and I just told them we needed to turn up our intensity and the energy and get after it defensively,” head coach Danum Hunt said. “That is what we set up to do the second half, and defense kind of turned it around for us.”

In the third quarter, a number of players scored to help the Chieftains stay with a strong offensive South Haven team.

In the fourth quarter, with about seven minutes remaining, the Chieftains tied the game at 37-37. Dowagiac ran into foul trouble shortly thereafter, but managed to keep it in check the remainder of the fourth quarter. The Rams found themselves in a similar predicament. Several Chieftains found themselves making crucial free throws to help their team take the lead.

Also In the final quarter, the Chieftains took fewer shots from outside the 3-point line and started going into the post and hitting Lanier and Murphy for easy layups.

“We were missing a lot of shots on the outside early on in the game,” Hunt said. “We wanted to try to get the ball on the inside. Get some cuts to the basket, get some layups, possibly get some shots off the low and mid-post. We were able to do that, and that kind of helped us get our scoring on.”

As the Chieftains found their groove with baskets from Murphy and Stewart Smith, Brookins added a free throw before his 3-point shot.

But the game was far from over, with 1:05 remaining. Dowagiac’s defense kept the Rams from scoring a point with the remaining time left, as Brookins added two points, and Lanier added two points.

“That three was huge, and that was a momentum swinger to try to kind of help seal the deal,” Hunt said. “With South Haven having guys that can make a shot from outside, we knew we would have to finish that all the way through.”

In the fourth quarter, Brookins said the team knew they were going to come back, and although it was a hard feeling for him to explain, it was evident on the court.

“Despite us struggling, we ended up overcoming adversity and coming back,” Brookins said. “It’s a sloppy win, but we will take it.”

Dowagiac will return to the court on Friday night as it travels to Vicksburg. Tipoff is scheduled for 7:15 p.m.