Playing in front of a full house - their own house, no less - the Dayton Dust Devils left nothing to chance when they met Spring Creek in the Northern 3A Regional Tournament semifinals on Friday night.
Dayton exploded to score 30 points in the second quarter then rode its stifling defense the rest of the way to a 67-49 victory at home to advance to the tournament championship game today against Yerington.
The two Lyon County rivals will play for the title at 5 p.m. at Dayton High School. Both teams have also qualified for the 3A state tournament next week in Las Vegas.
Dayton (20-9) showed some depth in its win. Eleven of the team's 13 players scored and eight different players scored in the big second-quarter.
"We suited up 13 kids and 11 scored, including two kids we brought up from the J.V., so I was happy to see that," Dayton coach Rob Streeter said, adding that he had three sophomores and two juniors on the court at the end of the game.
Streeter was even more enthused about the defensive performance of the Dust Devils, who beat Spring Creek for the third straight time this season.
"I've got to give them a lot of credit," Streeter said of the Spartans. "They came out and played hard. We just did a little better job of getting out on their shooters. They have some guards who can really shoot, but our kids did a good job of playing defense on transition."
One key for the Dust Devils was holding Spring Creek junior guard Colby Satterthwaite and senior guard Bryan Reinschmidt to two points each. And all of their points came from the free throw line.
"Satterthwaite averaged 18 points against us in the two games we played before, so this was big," Streeter said.
Dayton's trapping defense also helped ignite the second-quarter outburst.
"We got some turnovers off our trap that led to scores," Streeter said. "Defensively, it was just a good team effort."
Ken Goss connected on a pair of three-pointers during the second quarter, the last coming in the waning moments as the Dust Devils took a 41-23 lead to the locker room at halftime.
Dayton extended its lead to 55-36 at the end of three quarters.
Travis Wood scored 15 points to lead the Dust Devils, while Trent Wood added 12, Danny Hopper eight and Shane Castro seven. James Edwards led Spring Creek (15-13) with 16 points.
Dayton will be making its third straight trip to the state tournament, but first there's a date today against Yerington. The Dust Devils and Lions split two regular season meetings, so this will be the rubber match.
"The No. 1 thing on our minds all week was to qualify for state," Streeter said. "Now, we get to play our cross-county rival for the championship. And, hopefully, we'll get to play them one more time after tomorrow."
That would be for the 3A state championship in Las Vegas.
