It was a matter of survival for the Dayton and Fernley boys basketball teams.
Dayton failed to hold a 12-point third quarter lead, but went on to beat Truckee 72-65 in overtime in the first round of the Northern 3A playoffs on Thursday at Lowry. Meanwhile, Fernley overcame a 16-point third quarter deficit to beat Rite of Passage 73-70 in overtime.
Jake Deen scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds for Dayton.
The Dust Devils (19-8), tied a single-season school record for wins, and will play Lowry at 3 p.m. today in the semifinals. The winner advances to the state tournament, while the loser will have to win a third-place game Saturday to advance.
The Dust Devils, seeded third in the tournament after winning seven of their last eight regular-season games, led sixth-seeded Truckee (7-15) 44-32 midway through the third period before the Wolverines rallied behind their offensive rebounding and 3-point shooting.
After Truckee took a 62-60 lead, Dayton's Chris Sawyer made two free throws with 12 seconds left to force overtime.
After Joel Kiraly and Sawyer scored baskets at the start of overtime for Dayton, Sawyer scored on a layup following a steal Deen made two free throws with 1:22 left and sophomore Matt Bowman added two more at :22 to lock it up.
Dayton beat Lowry, the No. 2 seed, 64-60 last week.
Brian Lahmann added 12 points and Kiraly 11 for the Dust Devils.
"It's playoff time," Dayton coach Rob Streeter said. "We'll take a win any way we can get it."
FERNLEY 73, ROP 70
Bryson Frazier scored a career-high 23 points -- including a 3-pointer, his fifth of the game, in overtime that gave the Vaqueros their first lead of the game.
Adam Schwab made two free throws with 22 seconds to go to put Fernley (18-10) ahead to stay as the Vaqueros advanced to the semifinals, where they'll play two-time defending state champion Manogue at 6:30 p.m. today.
A win either in that game or in the third-place game Saturday will land Fernley in the state tournament for the second straight year.
The overtime was forced when Matt Lambeth made a difficult layup to tie the score 65-65 with two seconds to play on a give-and-go play with Frazier that covered 50 feet in a matter of a couple of seconds.
ROP (11-17) jumped to an 8-2 lead, extended it to 21-9 at the quarter and scored the last 12 points of the first half to establish a 40-25 lead at the intermission. The Rams took their biggest lead 46-30 in the third quarter before Fernley went on a 10-1 run -- keyed by six points by Bryan O'Dell -- to move back within range.
