Douglas girls' basketball coach Werner Christen put it pretty simply before the season started.
If his team can rebound, they'll be just fine.
The season-opening tournament at Whitney High School in California was a case in point.
The Tigers gave up one too many second-chance shots in losing to host Whitney 41-38 in the opener and had a disastrous first and fourth quarter during which they scored two points combined in a 43-27 loss to Placer.
They turned it all around in the tournament finale, getting double-digit scoring from four players on their way to a 69-28 win over Hiram Johnson out of the Sacramento area.
"It was exactly what we talked about before the year started," Christen said. "If we rebound, we are able to run. And if we are able to run, we are going to be pretty good."
Tia Lyons led Douglas in the Hiram Johnson game with 14 points, while Ne'Jae Jackson added 11 and Katie Dry and Alex Laing each had 10.
"It was great," Christen said. "We were getting baskets in transition and Tia and Alex were knocking down some outside shots, which really opened things up inside for us. It was a good game."
Jackson had 16 in the opener against Whitney while Lyons added nine and
Dry ran a nice floor game and put in three points.
"Whitney had watched some tape on us and they controlled the tempo," Christen said. "We didn't get a chance to run on them a lot. They played their tempo and they won by three. We were really pleased with the effort though. The kids played really well."
The Tigers were shut out in the opening quarter against Placer and managed just two points in the fourth.
Still, they had managed to cut the lead to three heading into the final period.
"Placer is a big, physical team and they were getting a lot of second-chance baskets," Christen said. "Just not being able to rebound, we weren't able to run.
"Overall, though, we played 10 great quarters out of 12. Two bad quarters against Placer cost us the game. We just got tentative and stopped attacking the basket.
"But these are the growing pains you have with a younger team. They'll learn from it and get better from it. We're going to be working on our rebounding every day. Consistency is the key word for us right now.
"We looked really, really good at some points and we were running the floor well. Our spacing was good. Other times, we struggled. The kids played hard, though and these are really just extended practices for us. It's the first time we played against anyone except ourselves, so it was good."
Douglas got some bad news when junior forward Carly McCullough broke her femur during a rebounding drill last week. She is expected to be out at least six weeks. The team called up Erica Macias from the junior varsity squad to fill McCullough's absence.
Douglas opens the Spanish Springs Invitational on Thursday against McQueen.
