After battling to a 10-9 first quarter, the Douglas and Carson girls' basketball teams appeared to be on their way to another nail biter finish Saturday afternoon.
Then the bottom dropped out on the Senators.
Douglas opened the second quarter on a 15-0 run and never looked back, taking a 54-32 win from the Senators. It was a much different outcome from the teams' first meeting this season when the Tigers held on for a 47-45 win in Carson.
"It was just one of those games," Douglas coach Werner Christen said. "Both teams played hard. I thought we did pretty well all-around tonight."
Among the big goals for the Tigers heading into the game was to limit Carson's Gina Bianchi, who exploded for 29 points in the teams' first meeting, to less than 10 points.
Goal accomplished. Bianchi finished with eight.
"Our staff came up with a defense-by-committee on her and it worked pretty well," Christen said. "We threw a couple of different girls at her and I thought we did a pretty good job as a team to keep her under control."
The Senators also had a tremendous struggle at the free-throw line in the game. They missed their first 10 free throw attempts and missed 20 total.
Douglas' Jessica Waggoner scored a game-high 25 points, including all 10 of the Tigers' first-quarter points.
"She's added a couple of new moves inside that have really helped," Christen said. "She's not very predictable and that has helped her the past few weeks."
Bridget Maestretti hit a 3-pointer to open the second quarter to launch the Tigers' run and get a name other than Waggoner in the scorebook.
While Waggoner added two baskets during the run, Ally Freitas, Nicole Didero and Sarah Hartley each put points up as well.
The Senators wouldn't get any closer than 10 points the rest of the way.
Bianchi and Christy Works each finished with eight to lead Carson, while Krista Mattice finished with seven.
Maestretti had seven points for Douglas, Allie Hughes and Jessica Gorton each had five, Freitas finished with four, Hartley had three and Lisa Christen had two.
Douglas improved to 17-7 overall and 8-1 in league play with the win.
