It was raining 3-pointers for the Wooster boys' basketball team early on against Douglas Tuesday night.
The Tigers, though, figured things out defensively and raced ahead for an 84-52 win over the Colts in Reno, setting up a showdown with top-ranked Manogue in Minden on Friday.
The Tigers had to scramble a bit defensively in the first half while the Colts sank eight 3-pointers, seven of which came in the first quarter. Douglas stuck with its powerful interior game on offense, though, and took a 39-33 lead into the locker room at halftime.
"We talked about how our goal is always to hold the other team under 50 points," Douglas coach Corey Thacker said. "We give up 33 in the first half, we had to slow it down somehow. We talked especially about shutting down their shooters, because they were hot in the first half. We focused on them and trying to disrupt their rhythm."
Mission accomplished. Douglas held the Colts without a field goal over the final 11 minutes of the game. That, coupled with outscoring the Colts 26-7 in the fourth quarter, led to the blowout win.
Every player on the Tiger roster put points on the board with five finishing in double figures.
Jorey Scott led the bunch with 15 points, Hunter Myers had 13, Brett Anderson and Luis Pina-Duarte each had 11 and Matt Thomas had 10.
Kameron VanWinkle had nine, Austin Neddenriep had five, Nick Maestretti, Garrett Getty and Jeremy Burkhart each had two and Theo Denson had one.
"I was really proud of our big guys tonight, and of our guards for looking inside and creating stuff off of our bigs," Thacker said. "That was a real positive. We stayed consistent with that all night."
Douglas hosts Manogue at 7 p.m. Friday night.
"We just have to focus on sticking to our tempo," Thacker said. "I'm not sure anyone can run with Manogue, but we can stick to our tempo. Defense is going to be huge. We'll just have to execute our stuff and see how it works out."
