After opening the year 0-3 last week, the Douglas boys' basketball completed an impressive weekend to pull even at .500 with a 64-47 win over Faith Lutheran of Las Vegas.
Aside from marking the Tigers' first-ever win over the Crusaders, the game marked the first time since the 2006-07 season that Douglas was able to win its own tournament - the Carson Valley Classic.
Douglas (3-3) posted double-digit victories in all three games of the tournament, including wins over Lowry and McQueen.
"We set the schedule so that we could improve during this month," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "We have another solid week of games coming up, and we have a long way to go. We need to keep improving. But, we saw a lot of very good things this weekend."
Against Faith Lutheran, Douglas fell back 18-14 in the second quarter before an 8-0 run put the Tigers in front for good.
Forward Garrett Getty had 16 points, two 3-pointers and a 4-for-4 clip at the free throw line to lead the Tigers, while center Jorey Scott had 12 points and earned tournament MVP honors.
"Jorey had three great games out there," Thacker said. "We always talk about how we want to run our offense inside. We did a good job as a team of making sure he got the ball and established the inside."
While the Tigers gained control of the lead in the second quarter, it wasn't until about two minutes into the third that they took control of the game's momentum.
After Scott hit a lay-up to open the second half, Faith Lutheran went on a quick 5-0 run to cut the lead to three at 36-33.
Another Scott lay-up, though, followed by a 3-pointer from Chris Downs and a basket from Theo Denson, launched the Tigers on a 12-2 run to push the score to 48-35.
"I thought in the third quarter, we starting getting smart pressure on the ball," Thacker said. "In the first and second quarter, we were trying to get pressure, but we were committing stupid fouls.
"When we started getting smart ball pressure and keeping our hands back, then we started increasing that lead."
Douglas had a 10-2 run starting in the middle of the fourth to put the game away.
"We want work in those late-game situations, because when we get into league play, we are going to have a lot of tight games," Thacker said. "We did a decent job of increasing the lead today. We built the lead to 14, then they called a timeout and we came out and pushed it to 17.
"We need to keep focusing on finding ways to make that happen, because we are going to be involved in some close games this year."
The Tigers got balanced scoring from throughout their lineup as Denson had seven points, Jeremy Burkhart and Austin Neddenriep each had six, Downs and Nick Maestretti each had five, Matt Thomas added four and Luis Pina-Duarte had one.
Douglas open up Sierra League play Tuesday at home against Fallon at 7 p.m.
