On Jan. 22, the Dunbar Bulldogs faced the Lexington Catholic Knights in the 43rd District classic.

Lexington Catholic Guard #22 John Reinhardt started off the game hot with a three pointer that foreshadowed what was going to happen throughout the course of the game.

In the first quarter, there was a questionable technical foul called on the Dunbar bench which sent John Reinhardt to the free throw line and took away the momentum that the Bulldogs had built.

The Bulldogs stayed within striking distance of the Knights through the second quarter as the first half came to a close with the Knights on top, 25-19.

In the first half, Dunbar had 8 team fouls and Lexington Catholic close behind with 7 fouls.

At half time, Dunabr’s Coach Murray Garvin told his team that their shots would fall and to not worry. 

“He felt like we played great and that shots just weren’t falling. [Coach Garvin] told us not to worry and that they will fall,” junior Tyler Gadd said.

The Knights began to pull away from the Bulldogs in the third quarter due to multiple timely shots from John Reinhardt as well as multiple questionable foul calls against the Bulldogs. 

There was a sequence early in the third quarter where there were 5 foul calls on Dunbar in less than a minute, which led the Dunbar student section to begin chanting “Skin the zebras!”

At the end of the third quarter, the Knights were ahead 40-29.

WIth the Knights suffocating full court, press defense was in no short supply throughout the game and made it hard for the Bulldogs to play their usual style of basketball.

With 3 minutes and 10 seconds left in the fourth quarter, the Knights were ahead 51-39, but the Bulldogs were not going to go down without a fight.

The Bulldogs went on a 15-5 run in the next few minutes to cut the Knights lead down to 56-54 with only 36.7 seconds left to go.

In the second half, Dunbar had 10 team fouls and Lexington Catholic had 9.

At that point in the game, the energy in the gym was palpable and the Dog Pound was absolutely electric.

Despite a valiant comeback effort, the Bulldogs were unable to win the game and ended up losing 61-56. This loss is their first district loss of the season, which moves them to 3-1 against district teams.

John Reinhardt went 4-4 for Lexington Catholic in the final 30 seconds of the game, which sealed it for the Knights.

Reinhardt accumulated 31 points in the game while going 5-8 from behind the arc and 14-15 from the free-throw line.

It certainly was a stellar performance that would have been hard to predict for Dunbar considering that he hasn’t been Lexington Catholic’s leading scorer this season and has only averaged 10.7 points per game this season.

“I always have to have a mindset that I’m always going to hit the next shot and to just let it go and let it fly,” Reinhardt said.

Lexington Catholic 7’0” Center Reece Potter also gave the Bulldogs fits in the paint throughout the course of the game. He finished the game with 13 points, 12 rebounds, and 2 blocks.

The loss doesn’t say much about the team either, considering the fact that they weren’t able to practice the day before the game because of a Fayette County snow day.

The Bulldogs will get another shot at the Knights in the regular season on Jan. 29 in Bueter Gym.

There is no doubt that the rivalry between these two teams is alive and well, and the next matchup will certainly be entertaining.

Four of the Dawgs next five games are against district teams, so there truly will be no rest for the weary.

“Huge week coming up with 3 district games. I would love to see the same crowd we had on Friday at all 3 games,”  Coach Murray Garvin said.

The Dawgs will look to learn from this loss and move on to their next game against Lafayette on Jan. 25 at 7:30 p.m.