The Douglas boys' basketball team battled its way through its most physical matchup of the young season Thursday night, beating Spanish Springs 62-44 in the first round of the Carson Valley Classic.
Despite the 18-point margin of victory, the Tigers struggled to fall into a solid rhythm.
"We didn't attack inside or attack the rim," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "We just didn't have any flow tonight.
"It really had that feeling of kind of squeaking it out."
The teams went scoreless over the first two minutes of the game. Douglas fought out to an 8-7 lead before Chris Downs hit a 3-pointer with 2:23 left in the first quarter and Spanish Springs never got any closer.
The shot highlighted a 13-2 run that gave the Tigers all the cushion it would need.
It was the first of three 3-pointers in the game for Downs. After the game he also claimed the tournament's 3-point shooting contest title, hitting 11 outside shots in 30 seconds during the final round.
Following the first-half run, Douglas wasn't able to string together any more than five consecutive points through the rest of the game.
"We had way too many fouls again," Thacker said. "We have to be better about creating offense out of our defense.
"We have to make adjustments and be smart on defense. We keep fouling and it kills our fast break. That's something we have to fix if we are going to be successful this year."
To their credit, Douglas did limit Spanish Springs' towering post players Phil Smith and Brian Smith -- 6-8 and 6-7 -- to just five points combined.
Austin Neddenriep scored 14 points to lead the Tigers while Downs had nine, Jorey Scott had eight and Garrett Getty, Hunter Myers and Matt Thomas each had six.
The Tigers will face Faith Lutheran at 7:30 Friday night. The tournament's slam dunk contest will precede the game at 7 p.m.
