Things might have start off a little shaky on defense Tuesday night, but once the Douglas girls' basketball team settled down, everything seemed to fall into place.
Douglas put together a shutout over nearly seven minutes through the middle of the game as the Lady Tigers ran away with a 68-39 win over Damonte Ranch in Minden.
The win boosted Douglas to 1-2 in league play with a match at Wooster looming at the end of the week.
Damonte was able to match Douglas nearly basket-for-basket over the first four minutes of the game but the Tigers went on a 13-2 run after adjusting its full-court press.
"We were a little disappointed with how we started defensively," Douglas coach Werner Christen said. "It was just a matter of us rotating back on our pressure. Damonte was getting a lot of weak-side stuff off of our pressure.
"We actually changed some angles and cut some things down in our spacing trying to contain them. We ended up having a couple stretches there that worked out really well for us."
Douglas had another 13-2 run over the first four minutes of the second quarter and essentially put the game away with a 17-2 run that stretched from a minute remaining in the first half to the fifth minute of the third quarter.
Each of those runs was sparked by numerous transition baskets created by the Tigers' press.
"When our defense creates our offense like that, it's exactly what we need," Christen said. "We had a lot of people getting good touches and I thought we finished our sets very well. That's the best we've finished this year."
Jessica Waggoner led all scorers with 29 points, 21 of which came in the first half. Taryn Williams had 10 points, Ne'Jae Jackson had nine points, Jackie Harper scored five, Maci Pfaffenberger, Dany Heidt and Bri Burnside each scored four , Ally Freitas had two and Megan Michitarian wrapped up the scoring with one.
Kiera O'Driscoll led the Mustangs with 14 points.
Damonte Ranch used its up-tempo game to blow past Douglas 68-55 in Minden Monday.
Luigi Terrana led the Mustangs with 24 points, a good portion of which came on the run as the Mustangs fought through the Tigers' full-court press defense.
Damonte led for all but about two minutes of the game, getting 14 points from Kyle Brush and eight from Josh Butler.
The closest Douglas got was in the second quarter when the Tigers fought back from an eight-point deficit to take a one-point lead with three minutes remaining in the second quarter.
The Mustangs reclaimed the lead 26 seconds later on a dunk from Butler and went on a 13-0 run to close out the half.
Douglas would later narrow the gap to nine at 45-36 on a runner from James McLaughlin but the Mustangs went on an 8-2 run to grab control back.
McLaughlin saw his first significant playing time of the season, leading the Tigers with 15 points in his first home game since returning from a broken leg suffered during football season.
McLaughlin first entered the game midway through the second quarter and had scored a team-leading seven points within three minutes.
Douglas also got 12 points from Parker Robertson and 11 from Tim Rudnick. Garrett Getty and Nick Hales each scored four, Chris Downs scored three and Tyler Hoelzen, Austin Neddenriep and Jorey Scott each had two in the loss.
Douglas (3-12, 0-2) travels to Wooster Friday night for a 7 p.m. game and returns home to host Galena Saturday at 5 p.m.
