by Joey Crandall
R-C News Service
The Douglas girls basketball team outpaced McQueen in Minden Wednesday night on its way to a 51-39 victory.
The Tigers outhustled the Lancers throughout the game, getting to the majority of the loose balls and rebounds. Douglas also used a stiff defense to frustrate the larger Lancers on offense.
"We knew going in that they were big," said Douglas head coach Werner Christen. "We knew that the only way they were going to beat us was if they got second and third shots. We only let them do that a couple times."
Douglas took a 26-18 lead into the locker room at halftime, propelled by eight Brittany Puzey points in the first half.
But it was in the third quarter that the Tigers pulled away for good. Erin Brinkmeyer scored 11 of her game-high 18 points in the third as Douglas outscored the Lancers 21-4 in the period.
Douglas switched to a full-court man-on-man defense to start the second half, which had McQueen visibly flustered.
"We switched things up a little, and we got some things out of that," Christen said. We're still at the point where our defense has to create our offense."
Brinkmeyer elaborated.
"I think we were just more confident in the second half," Brinkmeyer said. "We came together in the third quarter and played well as a team."
In the fourth however ...
"In the fourth quarter, not really," Brinkmeyer said.
McQueen rattled off 17 points in the final period, broken up only by a Brittany Puzey layup and two free throws.
Puzey, who finished the game with 17 points, sank all five of her attempts from the line.
"We just got a little too conservative in the fourth quarter," Christen said.
Kellei Kizer had a second consecutive solid outing, scoring 10 points with two three pointers to follow up a 12-point performance in Douglas' win over Spanish Springs Tuesday night.
Sarah Hughes scored 14 points and Brooke York added eight points, five from the line, to lead McQueen in the loss.
Douglas travels to Reed next Monday at 3 p.m. in a rematch of last year's Northern Region first-round playoff game in which the Tigers pulled off an upset of the No. 1-seeded Raiders.
