The Douglas girls' basketball team got a big boost heading into its winter break Friday night, coming from behind to beat Lowry 43-42 in overtime in Minden.
The Tigers, who lost to the Buckaroos last week in the High Sierra Winter Classic, trailed 33-23 early in the fourth quarter, but held Lowry without a field goal over the final seven minutes of regulation.
"We played really smart down the stretch," Douglas coach Werner Christen said. "I thought we ran our offense better and took care of the ball. We weren't forcing things toward the end and that paid off."
The score was tied at 40 with 21 seconds left in overtime before Katie Dry made a layup and drew a foul. She hit the ensuing free throw, which proved to be crucial as Lowry scored a basket with 1.8 seconds left to cut the deficit to one.
Douglas managed to run the clock out from there.
The Tigers trailed throughout regulation, only managing the tie late in the fourth and taking its first lead in overtime.
Ne'Jae Jackson led the Tigers with 13 points, Dry had seven, Jackie Harper, Natalie Freitas and Diana Regalado each had four, Alex Laing and Bri Burnside each had three, Tia Lyons had two and Susie White had one.
Douglas will get a break before heading the Las Vegas for the Centennial Tournament starting Dec. 28.
"We just need consistency," Christen said. "We are going to be working a lot on rebounding. We gave up 12 or 13 rebounds tonight. We have to work on making better decisions with the ball.
"We have a few practices before we head down there, so we can kind of regroup and see where we're at.
Christen said he's been pleased with the team's ability to defend down the stretch in close games.
"We've made stops when we needed to, and these close games are situations that are hard to duplicate in practice," he said. "Coach (Dave) Pfaffenberger handles a lot of the defensive stuff and he's done a great job with them.
"This was huge, winning tonight. We just wanted to play hard and see what happens."
