By By SCOTT NOVAK / Niles Daily Star
ST. JOSEPH - It wasn't exactly the type of start that Dowagiac coach Greg Blomgren was looking for Thursday night against host St. Joseph in the Class B District Basketball Tournament semifinals.
His Chieftains were 2-of-10 from the field and found themselves down 17-5 just two minutes into the second quarter.
And while Dowagiac only had six first half turnovers, they all seemed to come at the wrong time.
The slow start allowed the Bears to grab an 11-5 lead after one period of play.
St. Joseph (14-8) extended its lead to 17-5 with a 6-0 start in the second quarter. The lead remained around 10 points for the remainder of the opening half.
If the Bears were going to overlook the Chieftains, after having swept them during the regular season, it didn't happen.
St. Joseph was 10-of-23 (44 percent) in the opening half and had just three turnovers.
Meanwhile, Dowagiac (4-17) hit just 6-of-16 shots from the floor and were 0-of-3 from three-point range. The Chieftains did outrebound the Bears in the first half (14-11), but had three more turnovers.
Trailing 23-13 at halftime, St. Joseph appeared to have made some changes to their offensive attack which allowed the Bears to get inside for some easy baskets.
The Bears used a 6-0 run to open up the second half. Leading 29-13, however, the Chieftains made it little more interesting as they cut the St. Joseph lead to 29-20 with 1:11 left in the period.
That would be as close as the Chieftains would get as they turned the ball over late in the third quarter with a chance to cut into the Bears' lead even further.
St. Joseph was able to maintain a lead of between 12 and 14 points for most of the final eight minutes. The win sets up a showdown Saturday night with arch rival Lakeshore.
Despite being kept out of the offense for much of the night by the St. Joseph defense, junior Chris Primley still managed to score eight points and grab 10 rebounds.
The Chieftains also got seven points from Jamere Bacon and Amos Clark, Mike DeRose finished with six points.
St. Joseph was led by Jared Knuth's 12 points. David Clore and Brad Guinane both had 10 points.