Cape Central wins home opener over Dexter

The Cape Central Tigers opened the home portion of their schedule with a 65-43 win over the Dexter Bearcats on Friday at Cape Central High School.

After playing the first 12 games of the season away from home, Tigers coach Drew Church said his team was happy to be back home.

“It’s exciting to be back home,” Church said. “I thought we came out with a lot of energy.”

The Tigers jumped out to a 10-2 lead early in the first, but Dexter was able to keep the game close thanks to some hot shooting from Truman Kropf.

“Dexter played really well,” Church said. “They’re so good at controlling the tempo and I thought for the first four or five minutes we did a good job of speeding them up but then they settled in and the fact is they just made shots, tough shots.”

Cape led 33-31 at the half but was able to expand its lead to 42-36 heading to the fourth quarter. The lead would grow further as Central went on a 16-2 run that began when the game was 39-34 in favor of the Tigers.

“We continued to guard and in the second half, we rebounded,” Church said. “When we have five guys rebounding, especially guards, our break is better. Marquel (Murray) went up a few times and got a rebound and he can bring it (up) and find people.”

Cape Central’s Cam Williams echoed Church’s thoughts on the keys to the third-quarter run.

“We rebounded and pushed it up the floor a lot,” Williams said.

Church felt his team could have rebounded better in the first half, which resulted in extra opportunities for the Bearcats.

“It seems like if you give up multiple offensive rebounds it’s going to lead to a three,” Church said. “That happened several times.”

The fourth quarter began with the Tigers scoring the first 13 points and putting the game out of reach before winning 65-43.

Cape Central was led by Williams who had a game-high 26 points. Jaydon Reynolds posted a 20-point night as well in the win.

“Jay shot it well,” Church said. “They did a really good job of containing our bigs inside. We have enough guys that each night is different.”

Cole Nichols led the charge on offense for Dexter, scoring 20 points with two made threes. Kropf had 11 in the loss for the Bearcats.

Dexter will be back in action on Tuesday, Jan. 10 when the Bearcats host Bloomfield at 7:30 in Dexter.

Cape Central (13-0) will play 5 of the next 7 games at home and that stretch kicks off Saturday, Jan. 7 when the Tigers play Jennings at 4:30 p.m. in the Hall of Fame Classic at Cape Central High School.

“We just have to take it one game at a time,” Church said. “These guys come to work, we’ll have a game plan but for the most part we need to continue to give effort.”