Davis High’s men’s varsity basketball team lost a hard-fought game against the highly ranked Whitney High, losing 59-57 on Jan. 5. “We outplayed them for most of the game, but they got more shots than us,” said head coach Steven Smith.
During the first quarter Davis had a difficult time getting to the basket because of Whitney’s strong defense. “They went after the ball harder than we did,” Smith said.
The Blue Devils were able to come back during the second quarter with Will Doughty scoring eight points, followed by Ahmere Bradley with six points. “We came out kind of scared,” Doughty said. “Once we got out of that, we did better overall.”
In the third quarter, Davis was able to keep the score close, heading to the final quarter up 47-43. “We did a good job of running our offense,” said Rhys Crawford when asked what adjustment his team made.
At the start of the fourth quarter Whitney began to miss shots, leaving an opening for Davis to surge ahead and take a ten-point lead. Then, in an unfortunate turn of events Whitney would score 14 unanswered points to pull ahead.
Crawford was able to tie it up with 13 seconds left, but Whitney ended up scoring with 1 second left.
Although they could not make the final shot, Davis showed its ability to compete in this difficult league. “It was a good start even though we didn't get the result we wanted,” Doughty said.