Matched up against a late addition to the tournament, the Douglas boys' basketball team didn't show any signs of letdown Thursday night in the opening round of the Carson Valley Classic.
The Tigers got 23 points from Jeff Nady and 12 from James McLaughlin as they rolled to a 79-37 win over Fernley in Minden.
"The kids worked hard tonight," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "The big thing is that we all get better."
Douglas opened the game on an 17-2 run over the course of the first four-and-a-half minutes and never looked back. The Tigers outscored the 3A Vaqueros 21-7 in the first quarter and 47-16 in the first half as every Douglas player saw significant minutes and 10 of the 13 players in uniform put points on the board.
Ryan McPeek had a solid game for Douglas, scoring 10 points, Ross Bertelone had nine, David Laird had seven, Kevin Emm scored six and Drew Hamlett and Nick Hales each had four. Herman Fillmore and Tim Rudnick rounded out the scoring for the Tigers with two each.
For all the offensive fireworks, Thacker came away more pleased with the Tigers' defensive effort.
"Our big thing tonight was just to keep Fernley from getting offensive boards," Thacker said. "When we get to league play, that is going to be really important. That's what we were concerned with tonight."
Douglas got solid production throughout its lineup, scoring 20 points or more in three of the four quarters, even when the deeper parts of the bench were on the floor.
"Everyone played pretty well tonight," Thacker said. "They were doing things right, really concentrating. As a team we played pretty well.
"We're still trying to see who is going to step up and who we can go with. We want to see who we can play and for how long. This game was a good chance to see what everyone had.
"We saw a lot of improvement from that first game (a 50-49 loss to Reed). We came together as a team tonight and took a step in the right direction. We're just getting used to each other and moving offensively. It was good."
Douglas (1-1) will take on Dayton Friday night at 7:30 p.m.
