'Rivalry game' to feature 'great scorers' doing battle

DEXTER – History shows that tonight’s boy’s basketball match-up between Dexter and Bernie will be enthralling from a team perspective.

The teams will tip-off in Bernie at 7:30 p.m. and the Bearcats (10-4) have won three of the past five meetings between the two programs.

“It’s a rivalry game,” fourth-year Dexter coach Chad Allen said of facing the Mules (9-4). “Anytime that you have a rivalry game, you know that it is going to be a good one.”

By rule, the game will involve 10 players on the court at the same time, unless Allen or his counterpart, Bernie coach Jason Long, pull a Norman Dale from the epic movie “Hoosiers,” and just use four players to prove a point. However, most eyes in the tightly-packed gym will be on Mule senior guard Tristan Johnson and Bearcat senior guard Cole Nichols, both of whom are among the top scorers in Southeast Missouri.

“He is tough,” Allen said of Johnson. “He is just a gamer.”

How “tough” of a defensive assignment is Johnson? Just ask Kennett coach Noll Billings, who has spent his life watching the top players throughout the Bootheel.

“Anybody that keeps up with basketball here is going to remember Tristan Johnson for a long time,” Billings told Semoball.com recently. “I don't remember him getting an easy bucket – we had a lot of fresh legs and fast guys guarding him, and he just kept finding ways to make shots.”

Billings has tried to come up with a gameplan twice this season to contain Johnson, and as a team, both strategies worked, as the Indians won by four (in the Bloomfield Christmas Tournament) and by 15 (on Tuesday). However, from a containment perspective, well…

Johnson put up a combined 76 points against Kennett.

“We’re going to have to get in the gym and try to build some stuff,” Allen said of a defensive plan. “Hopefully, we’ll put our own game plan together, and hopefully, we’ll be able to play well and execute it.”

As good as Johnson is, and he is great, no one will be surprised to see Nichols match Johnson’s productivity or even surpass it.

“They are both great scorers,” Allen said. “And both teams have a lot to go with (Johnson and Nichols), as well.”

Allen spent his college career playing for Memphis, in some of the largest basketball venues in the country. However, he actually enjoys games like tonight’s being played in a small, but filled, old country gymnasium.

“It’s going to be a great game and a great environment,” Allen said. “It’s going to be loud. It’s going to be a great atmosphere. We’re looking forward to it.

“I played in 15,000 to 20,000-seat packed arenas, but when you get in a gym like (Bernie), the atmosphere is really about the same. It’s really loud and it is a lot of excitement. That is what makes high school basketball so great.”

The Mules are trying to find a groove right now. After opening the season with eight consecutive wins, Bernie has now dropped four of its last five games, including three consecutive games.

Conversely, the Bearcats have won six of their past seven contests.