Victory slips through Douglas boys fingers

This one just escaped by a couple inches.

Literally.

Trailing South Tahoe by two with 10 seconds left, Douglas' Skylar McNabb placed an arcing inbound pass at the base line just through the fingertips of Keith Olson before the ball was recovered by South Tahoe's Conner Freeman.

Freeman was fouled on the play and made a free throw as the Vikings held on for a 60-57 victory at South Tahoe in Sierra League play Tuesday night.

"We were trying to go to Keith on that play," Douglas coach Keith Lewis said. "We'd had success with that play earlier in the game. We hopefully drag someone out to the corner there and Keith sets the screen and then just rolls right back. That's what we were trying to do there."

Douglas had trailed by 11 just two minutes prior but made a valiant fight to get back into the game.

Freeman made the front end of a pair of free throws to put South Tahoe up 55-44 with time dwindling.

The run started innocently enough, with Nate Whalin hitting a follow-up basket and Reese Kizer added another.

Douglas fouled on the next two inbounds and McNabb then stole the following inbound pass and called a timeout with 1:14 left.

Olson scored on the following play to draw Douglas within five and after the Vikings' Jared Wood hit a pair of free throws, Whalin scored again to make it 57-52.

Freeman had a huge miss on the front end of the following one-and-one and McNabb hit a 3-pointer on the ensuing trip down the floor to bring Douglas within two.

Wood again made a pair of free throws on the other end and then Eric Emm brought the ball down the floor and pulled the Tigers to back within two with a nice runner.

Freeman was called for traveling after receiving the inbound, setting up Douglas' chance to tie it with 10 seconds left.

Freeman missed the front end of his final trip after grabbing what proved to be the game-winning steal. He redeemed himself on the second shot, forcing Douglas to focus on a 3-point shot with seven seconds to get the ball down the floor.

Emm got the call to take the last shot, but his attempt was blocked by Tahoe's Casey Curcie at the buzzer. Curcie was initially called for a foul, but the referees determined it had occurred after the buzzer and waived the call off.

It was a highly-climactic end to a game that appeared to be a disaster in the works in the opening minutes.

South Tahoe raced out to a 15-4 lead and appeared to be set to run away with the entire game in the first quarter. The Vikings hit three 3-pointers in the opening period alone and held Olson without a point through most of the first half.

"It's late enough in the season to where this shouldn't be happening," Lewis said. "The bottom line is that when they don't go hard at the start, we don't get it done. Then we go into panic mode and you just can not play basketball that way."

The Tigers clawed their way back into the game in the second quarter with a 14-2 run keyed by five points from McNabb,

Ramsey Horse added a 3-pointer during the run and Olson's first basket of the game, which came with two minutes left in the half, brought the Tigers to within one.

Olson made a free throw after being fouled on a basket on the next trip down the floor to give the Tigers' their first lead of the game at 23-21.

Freeman made a pair of free throws at the other end to tie it back up, but Olson answered with another layup to give Douglas its final lead of the game.

Freeman hit a three-pointer with under a minute left to put South Tahoe back out in front, 26-25.

"We went back to not defending tonight," Lewis said. "Basketball is not a real difficult game. The teams that defend consistently are the teams that win games.

"We had a lot of guys tonight that were feeling sorry for themselves offensively and they just didn't get it done on the defensive end."

Douglas ended the game with 36 team rebounds, 16 for Olson, but had difficulty getting to the offensive rebounds on a cold shooting night.

South Tahoe did an effective job of containing Olson, often collapsing three players on him when the ball got passed his direction. Olson finished the night with 17 points to lead Douglas. Whalin had 12, McNabb had 10 and Emm had seven.

The Vikings had four players in double figures with Curcie leading all scorers with 19, while Freeman had 15, Dan Tinlin scored 11 and Wood put up 10.