RENO - The smile on Rick Shaw's face after the game said it all.
The Reed High girls' basketball coach poked his head into the Douglas High meeting room and shouted, "See? That's why I love playing you guys. It's a great game every time we play."
The West Coast Showcase red bracket championship game pitted Reed's sharp-shooters against Douglas' high-octane hard-nosed offense, promising fireworks on both sides of the floor.
Neither team disappointed.
Reed hit a remarkable 11 3-pointers and Maria Moore scored 35 points to lead the Raiders to a 73-54 win against Douglas at Reno High Saturday night.
The final score hardly told the story as Douglas pushed the Raiders throughout the game, aided by 31 points from Erin Brinkmeyer.
"That was just great basketball," a beaming Shaw said. "That's the first time in my three years here that we've been able to beat this team. Douglas just has a fantastic program."
Douglas coach Werner Christen couldn't contain a smile after the game either.
"There's no such thing as a good loss, but when your team plays as hard as our girls did tonight, there's not a whole lot you can say," Christen said. "That was a fun game, and Reed is a classy program. It was a fun game and that's what high school basketball is all about.
"It was fun to coach and it was fun for the girls to play in because it was simply pure basketball."
Reed came out on fire, hitting four 3-pointers in the opening minutes and quickly building a 20-4 lead.
But Douglas wasn't going to be put away easily, scraping together a 6-0 run to close the quarter and extending that into a 12-1 run into the middle of the second, closing the gap to 21-16.
Reed was able to answer with a 6-0 run of its own, Douglas answered with five consecutive points and then Reed went on a huge 13-0 run to pull way back out in front before halftime.
"They were extremely good in transition," Christen said. "When we were able to get them in a half-court situation and run our defense, we were very effective.
"But, it just seemed like every time we'd get down and miss a shot, they come right back and hit a big basket. They are a very good team and you can't let them do that."
Reed led 40-25 coming out of the locker room at halftime, but Douglas came out with some little runs of its own, outscoring the Raiders 23-19 in an incredibly entertaining third quarter.
Moore and Brinkmeyer basically traded huge plays as Moore had 13 points in the third and Brinkmeyer had 12.
"We told them in the locker room to just keep running it, and see if we could get back into it," Christen said. "Reed did a great job of making the extra pass and finding the open player. That's something we need to get better at, but we will."
Brinkmeyer got the Tigers started in the second half with a big 3-pointer and Douglas forced a turnover on the ensuing inbound.
Brittany Puzey, who finished the game with 10 points, was there for the layup.
Moore followed with a trey of her own but Brinkmeyer answered with another 3-pointer and then two free throws. She hit 13-of-14 from the line on the night and Douglas went 15-for-16 as a team.
Douglas' Kellei Kizer had a big 3-pointer for the Tigers in the third as well.
"Even when we were ahead, we weren't ahead," Shaw said. "Douglas is very dangerous. They'd make those little runs and keep me shifting around on the sidelines right up until the end."
Reed used its depth to wear down the Tigers and put the game away in the fourth.
Monica Knight finished the game with four points for Douglas, while Tammy Gough, Bridget Maestretti and Felicia Imelli each had two. Brinkmeyer and Puzey were each named to the all-tournament team.
Brittany Moore chipped in 17 points, including four 3-pointers, for the Raiders.
"We made some big strides as a team this weekend," Christen said. "We won ugly on Thursday, we played pretty well Friday and tonight we had some bright spots, but not enough of them."
