Douglas boys' basketball coach Corey Thacker isn't worried about a couple of gray hairs, just as long as his team is continuing to learn.
The Tigers saw a game come down to the final possession for the fifth time this season Friday night, but that final shot never came to fruition.
Douglas had a chance to tie it up with the last shot but the lost control of the ball with less than five seconds remaining. Manogue's Bobby Hunter came up with the loose ball and dribbled out the clock as the top-ranked Miners held on for a 63-60 win over the unranked Tigers in Minden.
"They're definitely giving me some gray hairs," said Douglas coach Corey Thacker with a laugh. "But what's important is that they continue to learn from these games. We're going to build on this. They've been in this situation a number of times now and they are learning to trust each other in them.
"We know we can play defense. The league is so even, we know that if you play defense, you are going to give yourself a great opportunity to win."
Indeed, Douglas held Manogue's high-octane offense, which came into the game averaging 80 points and having eclipsed the 100-point mark four times this season, in check. The Miners went just three of 19 from behind the 3-point arc.
"It was a lot of team defense," Thacker said. "It's a compliment to our guys. We made sure we stayed with them and contested all their shots. With their offense, they want to get a lot of shots off. They get a lot of their points off of second chances, offensive rebounds. We only gave up 11 offensive rebounds tonight. The last time we played them, they had 21. We cut down on the extra opportunities a lot."
The difference in the entire game may have come in the second quarter. After the teams played to a 15-15 tie in the first, the Miners opened the second on a 13-1 run, capitalizing on a number of turnovers on the Douglas end.
"They are a good team," Thacker said. "We had a couple mistakes here and there but a team like that is going to take advantage of them."
Douglas got back into the game with a 10-1 run of its own, using 3-pointers from Tim Rudnick and James McLaughlin to close the gap to 29-26.
The Tigers outscored the Miners 16-11 in the third quarter and cut the deficit to 45-44 with a long 3-pointer from Luis Pina-Duarte at the buzzer.
Douglas tied the game up twice over the next two minutes and even held a brief lead at 49-48 after a putback from Cale Pete but Manogue used a an 8-0 run to pull back out.
Trailing 61-54 with 1:25 left, Austin Neddenriep scored on a drive down the baseline and James McLaughlin scored on a drive of his own to close the gap to 61-58 with 44.1 seconds left.
Manogue Keith's Fuetsch hit the back end of a pair of free throws with 30 seconds left but Douglas' Parker Robertson scored inside with 10 seconds left to close it to 62-60.
Hunter was fouled on the next possession, but missed his second shot, giving Douglas a final chance trailing by three with 9.1 seconds left.
Hunter led all scorers in the game with 17 points while Manogue's Alex Hargrove had 13 and Fuetsch had 12.
Cale Pete led Douglas with 15 points, Rudnick had 12, McLaughlin had 10, Pina-Duarte had nine and Robertson had seven.
Manogue improved to 14-6 overall and 5-0 in league play with the win while Douglas dropped to 5-13 and 2-3.
