For the first 20 minutes of Friday night's matchup between the Douglas boys' basketball team and Dayton High School, the Dustdevils looked like giant killers and the Tigers looked like, well, sleeping giants.
Then Douglas woke up in a big way.
Trailing 32-27 with 4:25 left in the third quarter, Jeff Nady launched a personal 8-0 run over the next two minutes and the Tigers extended that into an impressive 46-7 stretch to close out the game with a 73-39 win in the semifinals of the Carson Valley Classic in Minden.
Douglas' run started primarily because the Tigers were able to their full-court trap working after the scrappy Dustdevils spent the better part of the first half beating them down the floor.
"We had that trap in all game, it was just our effort wasn't there," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "We just didn't get into it. It took us a long time to decide that we wanted to go out and play. We didn't change anything up defense-wise, it was all effort in the second half.
"Now we have to find a way to start that in the first half."
Nady hit a pair of free throws to start the run and then hit inside jumpers on the Tigers' next three possessions, each of which followed a Dustdevil turnover. He finished with 25 points, including three 3-pointers.
"Jeff got going there and that sparked the rest of us to get going," Thacker said. "We know we have the heart, it was just a matter of being able to turn it on."
Nine different players put points on the board for Douglas during the big run and the defense held Dayton to just three points in the fourth quarter.
The win put Douglas into the tournament title game against Faith Lutheran Saturday afternoon at t 4 p.m., who beat Bishop Manogue and Carson in the first two rounds to advance to the title game.
"We're going to see a lot different opponent," Thacker said. "They are a very good team. We are going to have to play all 32 minutes. Twelve minutes just won't cut it.
"Faith Lutheran is solid. They have three very good players and we'll have to get after them right from the start."
Dayton opened up the scoring Friday night on a bucket 30 seconds in from Hans Meyer, but the two squads traded blows for the majority of the first half, neither pulling more than three points in front of the other until just before the 3-minute mark.
Dayton went on a 7-1 run highlighted to take a 27-21 lead before Douglas cut it back down with a free throw from Parker Robertson and a basket just before the buzzer from Drew Hamlett.
Thacker subbed liberally through the second quarter, trying to find a combination that could make the pressure defense work.
"We just needed some guys out there that weren't turning it over and that would play defense," Thacker said.
The Tigers got consistent efforts early on from David Laird and Kevin Emm. Laird finished with 18 points while Emm, who finished with six points, was solid on the defensive end and on the glass.
"David had a lot of our points early and he was getting some of those offensive rebounds," Thacker said. "Kevin Emm really played hard tonight. It we can get guys playing more consistently like that, it'll go a long way for us."
Herman Fillmore, Nick Hales and Robertson each finished with five points, Hamlett had three and Ryan McPeek, Ross Bertolone and CJ Marcotte each had two.
Meyer led Dayton with 13 points while Tanner Wood added eight.
Douglas improved to 2-1 with the win.
In other Carson Valley Classic action, Manogue beat Merced, Calif., Faith Lutheran beat Carson and Fallon topp Fernley.
