Davis goes for 20 as Lady Hounds roll

FAIRFIELD - The first quarter of Friday night's game at Fairfield, must have seemed like a whole game for the Lady Hounds.
But things came together in the second half as Fort Madison rolled to a 54-21 win to open Southeast Conference girls basketball play.
Fort Madison shot just 4 of 18 in the first quarter to the dismay of Head Coach Landon Bentley.
“We adjusted our pre-practice this week. We were shooting 3-28 from the 3-point line before today. I thought we shot better today,” he said.
“But the first quarter was a little sluggish and we're working on that. We just have to be ready and prepared to play right away.”
Junior Dayonna Davis had six of the Bloodhounds eight first quarter points on her way to a career-high 24 points on the night.
Holding the Trojans to just 11 first quarter points helped diminish the impact of the rough start shooting for Fort Madison. Bentley employed a full-court press from the get-go forcing Fairfield into three first quarter turnovers and a couple Hound steals to get the pace of the game moving.
The poor shooting continued for about four minutes in the second quarter when the Hounds hit on just one of eight shots from the field. But a bucket from Charley Huebner on a put back from a Wolfe miss in the lane seemed to pop the lid off the basket.
Huebner would miss the 'and-one' to put Fort Madison back on top 13-11 after Fairfield rallied during the Hound shooting slump.
Then Fort Madison would go on a 7-0 run in a sequence where the Hounds didn’t allow the Trojans to get the ball past the halfcourt line. Wolfe would hit a 3-ball with 2:05 left and the the press created a steal and bucket inside from Halle Menke. Then Wolfe stole the ball again in the heavy pressure and kicked it over to Davis who converted for a 20-11 halftime lead.
The momentum carried into the second half as the Hounds’ defense limited Fairfield to just seven shots from the field in the third quarter, while extending their lead to 24 at 39-15 highlighted by Davis’ 12-point quarter.

Fort Madison would push the lead to 30 at 46-16 halfway through the fourth quarter. Bentley would call a timeout with 4:10 left and empty the bench
”We looked great in the second half and that shows who we are,” Bentley said.
“Dayonna and Hadley - when they step up and play their game and show their capability, everyone else follows suit.”
He said the pressure was a big part of the Hounds pulling away but he wasn’t happy with the tempo it produced in the early going.
“We've been running that all season, but I wasn't impressed with it in the first half. I'm just not going to press you when we're up a certain amount of points, but I wanted to rep it as much as we could to get better at it for the future,” he said.
He’s also still waiting for a full squad this season.
“We're still down Jakayla Nelson as she's been sick all week, so we've yet to play a game with our full team. And I'm excited for that.
Davis agreed with the slow start.
“We started off kinda slow, but at halftime we talked about trusting each other and we came out and executed that, and it just came together,” she said.
“We're working as a team right now rather than relying on one person and I think that's helping us.”
The Lady Hounds (1-0, 2-1) are off for the rest of the weekend, but have three games next week starting with Danville at home Monday. They host Mt. Pleasant on Friday and then travel to Pella on Saturday.