On Wednesday the Dons faced off in the semifinals of the Chris Huber Classic against the Branson Bulls, with another good crowd in the house. It was a slow start with the teams trading missed 3 pointers the first few possessions before Jack Bayless opened the scoring with a slashing layup, and Theo hit a deep 3 to make it 5-6. Jack added a layup and Tate Nelson added a FT for the Dons who trailed 8-14 at the end of Q1. 

Tate opened Q2 with a layup on a nice feed from Jake in the midpost. Branson’s PG hit 2 3s to make it 10-20, but a Jake elbow jumper and Noah Bloch 3 cut the lead to 15-20. The hot Branson shooting continued and the stretched the lead to 16-30. Zubin Acuna fired up the crowd diving on a loose ball and kicking to Theo, who then hit Jake at the rim for an alley-oop layup. After a stop Jake hit a 3 to cut the Branson lead to 21-30 at the half.

The Dons got 3 stops to start the half, with Jack capitalizing on a fast break to make it a 7 point game. The Dons kept that margin for most of the quarter but 2 late 3s made it a 14 point Branson lead to end Q3.

Unfortunately, scoring remained sparse in Q4 for the Dons with Branson stalling on the lead it was a low scoring affair, and Acalanes dropped this one by 16. The Dons will face Redwood Thursday, December 30th at 1:30 in the third place game.