Tiger girls on board for win

MINDEN — Leonna Mortimer and the Douglas High girls basketball team crashed the glass Friday night, and in the process, ran off with a 64-52 victory in its rivalry game against Carson.

Douglas (9-2 league, 17-4 overall) pulled down 17 offensive rebounds and 37 overall on its way to winning the Sierra League contest at Randy Green Court.

Mortimer led the Tigers with a double-double, as the 5-foot-7 senior forward scored 22 points and pulled down 10 rebounds (five on the offensive end).

“We challenged them (before the game) not to give up second shots,” Douglas coach Werner Christen said. “I thought our kids did a good job of blocking out underneath, and I especially thought we were real aggressive on the offensive boards.”

For Carson (5-6, 10-11), coach Nate Tolbert felt the difference came on the defensive end.

“We weren’t picking up their rotations and just staying committed and disciplined,” Tolbert said. “That and they were relentless on the boards. They’re not going to stop until you get your hands on the ball and pivot out.”

Madison Preston scored 14 points to lead Carson, while Kayla Aikins contributed eight.

The Senators had their moments offensively. After falling behind 15-5 in the opening five minutes, Andrea Maffei sank a 3-pointer late in the first quarter and Preston scored off a takeaway in the backcourt to cut the gap to 19-18 with 6:00 left in the second quarter. They had an opportunity to take the lead, only to turn the ball over.

“We had some runs, we just couldn’t quite get over the hump,” Tolbert said. “Basketball is a game of runs and they managed those better than we did.”

Douglas responded at that point with an 14-4 run to end the first half. Mortimer scored eight of those points, capped by a layup off an assist from McKenna Kynett with 11 seconds to go.

Alissa Holley also scored 13 points, seven of which came in the first quarter to help stake the Tigers to a 19-14 lead. Gina Peacock added 13 points, seven in the fourth quarter. Corryne Millett also contributed 11 rebounds (five offensive) and Kynett dished out five assists to help spark the Tigers to their ninth win in 10 games.

It wasn’t a pretty night at the charity stripe, however, as the Tigers only connected on 14 of 42 free throws (33 percent).

That figure would have been even lower if not for Holley and Peacock combining to shoot 10-for-15 at the line.

Christen gave credit to the Senators afterward.

“I thought Nate had a pretty good game plan,” Christen said.

“His kids played hard; so did ours. They got us into a scramble, uptempo type of thing.

“It was just a typical rivalry game. A lot of crazy things happened.”

After trailing by as many as 17 points — 58-41 with 3:49 left to play — Carson made a run late. Melissa Glanzmann banked in a layup, Teresa Boehmer converted a three-point play and Aikins scored on a drive to cut the gap to 58-48 less than a minute later, but that’s as close as it would get.

“There is no quit in this team,” Tolbert said. “We’re not tall and we’re not old, but we’re scrappy. These kids just play hard and do what they can.”