On Thursday, the Paynesville Bulldogs boys' basketball team played their last game of the season at home against the Dassel-Cokato Chargers.This was the first round of playoffs. Paynesville was seeded second and the Chargers were seeded seventh in the Sub Section of District 20. The Chargers took control in the second quarter and held onto the lead, winning 81-57.
In the first quarter, it looked as if Paynesville was going to run away with the game. Dassel-Cokato fought back harder than the Bulldogs could handle.
In the second quarter, Paynesville lost control of the game and the Chargers got ahead by a couple of points at half time.
In the second half, Dassel-Cokato was on fire, hitting a high percentage of their shots. It seemed as if there was something covering the Bulldogs basket because of all the easy shots they missed.
Paynesville went from being down by four to trailing by 20 in quite a hurry. The Chargers outscored the Bulldogs 22-6 in the third quarter.
As hard as Paynesville tried, they could not get out of that hole. The Bulldogs played hard to get back in the game but came up short to end their great season. The final score was 81-57.
Sophomore J. T. Koehn gave Paynesville fans a taste of what next year will be like as he scored 27 points, snared 13 rebounds, and set a new school record for most free throws made in a game at 18.
Bulldogs head coach Darrel Carstens had this to say about the game and the season as a whole, "We played well the first half but missed a lot of shots that were great shots. Once we fell behind, we played hard but we were taken out of our game plan. The year was fun and the seniors will be missed."
Dassel-Cokato: 9 22 22 28 - 81
Paynesville: 15 12 6 24 - 57