The Douglas High girls' basketball team will take on, well, Douglas High School Thursday night.
The game, however, will not be played at Douglas High School.
The Lady Tigers will host defending Alaska 4A State Champion Juneau-Douglas High at 7 p.m. at Pau-Wa-Lu Middle School due to the winter music concert at the high school.
"They're pretty darn good from everything we've heard," Douglas coach Werner Christen said of the Alaskan visitors. "We don't know anything else about them, haven't seen any film or anything. But we're trying to get better and we wanted to schedule these types of games coming in."
Juneau Douglas will play at Carson Friday and at McQueen Saturday as part of its Northern Nevada visit.
While the Crimson Bears will likely represent Minden Douglas' stiffest test of the season, the Tigers are coming off a promising showing at the Spanish Springs Invitational last week.
Douglas went 4-0 in the tournament, including a bizarre forfeit win against McQueen.
Christen said the team's upswing started in the second half of the North Valleys' league matchup last Tuesday when Douglas outscored the Panthers 16-6 in the fourth quarter.
"It's like a light bulb went on for us all of the sudden," Christen said. "We still have a way to go, but the kids are starting to believe this is the way we have to play.
"They started to shoot better, they filled the lanes better in transition, they defended very well. It was a good week.
"The kids are starting to learn how to play with each other a little bit. It was basically a whole new mix coming in, and they're figuring it out. That's good to see."
Douglas opened the tournament with a 57-32 win over Elko.
"I thought it would be a pretty even game, but we came out and scored 24 and 17 in the first two quarters and held them to 8 and 9. That was a good boost."
Carly McCullough and Cora Moody each had eight points in the win.
"Everyone played quite a bit and everyone contributed. It was by far our most balanced game."
The Tigers followed the Elko win with a victory over South Tahoe.
McCullough again led the way with 11 points.
"She is starting to blossom on the floor," Christen said. "Her feet are better, her hands are better. She had a good weekend. It was a balanced game for the whole team again."
That set up a Saturday morning matchup with McQueen.
The game was midway through the first quarter when the Lancers were called for a number of fouls that Christen said probably could have gone either way.
The Lancers were hit with a technical and while Douglas was setting up to take the shots, McQueen's bench was issued another technical.
At that point, the McQueen coaches called their players off the floor and the team left the gym with Douglas leading 7-5.
"The (McQueen) kids still wanted to play, but the referees basically just came over to our bench and said, 'Sorry, that's the game,'" Christen said. "In all my years of coaching, I've never seen anything like it."
Douglas capped the tournament with a 46-33 win over Atwater, Calif.
Natalie Freitas led the way with eight points and McCullough and Diana Regalado each had six.
"We had a good first half and then held them to just two in the fourth quarter," Christen said. "It was a good way to close out the tournament.
"Against North Valleys, we kind of challenged the kids at halftime. We said they were being too nice on defense and that they had to start getting after people a bit more.
"The last four games, that's been happening. It's a simple game. We have to defend, we have to pass and catch and be hard to guard. They're starting to look more comfortable out there. It's been nice."
After the Thursday matchup with Douglas, the Tigers will travel to Winnemucca to take on a talented Lowry squad.
After that, Douglas will get about a week off before heading to Las Vegas for the Bulldog Classic.
"It'll be good to actually get some real practice time in and kind of decompress from these games we've been having basically back-to-back," Christen said of his team's eight games in 11 days. "We'll see what we've learned and try to build on that heading into the thick of league play."
