By Johnny Sanders
Sports Editor
The Moody Blue Devils traveled to St. Clair County on Tuesday night with a chip on their shoulder after the Friday night loss to Leeds at home. They took it out on the Saints in dominant fashion as they welcomed back Davion Dozier, who missed the Leeds game due to being at the Alabama/Mississippi All-Star Football game. “It’s pretty evident how good of a player he is and how much he means to the team and the spark he gives us on both ends of the court. He’s a huge part of our team,” said Chad Bates, Moody’s head coach.
The Blue Devils burst out of the gate with a 17-8 first quarter that saw Aden Johnson hit both of the 3-pointers that he attempted. Carson Dillashaw crashed the boards and owned the paint with 5 points of his own to go with the 4 that Dozier put up as the defense consistently smothered the Saints offense. Moody would take a 17-8 lead into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, the scoring would be spread out a bit more as names like Caden Helms (4 points) and Koby Seymour (5 points) would join Dozier, Dillashaw and Johnson in the scoring frenzy. The defense would continue to have success and cause the Saints fits on the offensive side of the ball as they held them to just 8 points again. Dozier would also send the Moody crowd into a frenzy with a pair of thunderous dunks in the quarter. The teams would head into the locker room with Moody leading 37-16.
Moody wouldn’t score quite as many points in the third as they had the previous quarters, but it would not be a quarter without excitement. Dozier would continue his dunk-fest with 3 more jams (2 of them coming on consecutive possessions) to keep the Devil fans on their feet. But, the one that really got them 411 crowd going was when Blaine Burke found himself on a fast break and dunked it to join the party. Moody would keep dominating, heading into the final frame up 49-23. “Blaine asked me in the locker room if he got a break away, could he dunk it. I told him to boom it! He’s a super good kid and wants to be good and the transition from football to basketball can be tough but he’s figuring it out.”
St. Clair would show lots of fight in the fourth as they outscored Moody 21-12, but that would not be enough to top the red-hot Blue Devils. The final would be 61-44.
“Aiden Johnson came in and hit some threes and that was huge for us. We don’t shoot the ball particularly well yet. Our defense stepped up really well against the press.”
Dozier led all scorers with 14 points while Johnson was 4-4 from outside to add 12 points.
Moody improves to 5-4 (1-1 in region) as they prepare to welcome the 7-3 rival Springville Tigers on Friday night.
