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Serving Lincoln County for more than a century!
Rainwater and Telecky missed on the court
Davenport senior Brenick Soliday looks inside against the Liberty defense Tuesday, Jan. 3. Davenport suffered its first loss of the season 59-55.
DAVENPORT - They may have been missing their best player and a key bench contributor, but the Gorillas boys basketball team isn't making any excuses for their 59-55 shortfall to the defending state champion Liberty Lancers Tuesday, Jan. 3.
The loss was Davenport's first of the season after the Gorillas won their first nine games, all by double figures.
Davenport was missing its best player, Tennessee Rainwater, and a key bench contributor, Wyatt Telecky, both of whom were out due to illness. Those losses were felt in the first 14 minutes of the game, when Davenport struggled to get shots to fall and Liberty built a 30-18 lead thanks to balanced offensive scoring.
"(Rainwater) is a pretty big presence in any basketball game, so his presence is going to be missed, but we played a lot of basketball this summer without him, so we knew how to play successful basketball without him," Davenport head coach Matt Henry said. "It's always nice to have our full complement, but you have to go 'next man up' mentality and take what you got."
Davenport called a timeout with just over 2 minutes left in the first half and responded with an 8-0 run to close the half and make its intermission deficit 30-26. The two teams played back-and-forth in the third quarter. Liberty was up 45-40 after three quarters.
"We just could not get more shots to fall," Henry said. "We shot pretty darn poor at a time when we got good looks... it is what it is.
"And the great thing about this team is that it's resilient and I'm excited to see how they bounce back from this."
Brenick Soliday woke all the way up in the second half, scoring 19 of his game-high 24 points to try to will his team to victory.
Davenport twice cut the deficit to two, one on a Soliday three and second on a driving layup by Evan Gunning that had the Gorilla faithful screaming through the soon to be replaced high school roof.
But Liberty's Cooper Thomas calmly stepped up to the free throw line and knocked down four straight free throws, two of which were with 6 seconds left and put the game away for good.
"I think it challenges (us) mentally," Henry said. "It's always tough to go through a season without losing. This is too good a league to expect that you can do anything like that."
Liberty was balanced in scoring, led by 13 points apiece from Lincoln Foland and Jake Jeske. Eight Lancers scored and seven Lancers scored multiple times.
Davenport (9-1) will try to get back on track at Kettle Falls at 7:30 p.m., Friday, Jan. 6.
Drew Lawson is the editor of the Davenport Times. He is a graduate of Eastern Washington University.
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