Douglas High girls basketball
Katrina Butalon (12) goes up for a layup in Douglas' blowout win over Damonte Ranch Tuesday night in Reno.
Photo by Ron Harpin.
When your defense leads to offense as well as it did for Douglas High girls’ basketball Tuesday night, it’ll be hard for many teams to keep up with the Tigers.
The Tigers being active and aggressive in the passing lanes throughout the first half fueled a 62-27 win over Damonte Ranch.
Douglas dropped into a 2-3 zone early, but consistently plugged the middle and turned steals into fastbreak points.
“They have ownership. The girls are calling it and they believing in what they’re doing,” said Douglas head coach Brian Mello. “Every possession we want to build on, but now, can we duplicate this for the next game?”
Cleaning up the rotations on defense was an area of emphasis after an eight-point loss to Reno to open up Douglas’ season.
“They are pretty active. We didn’t do a good job against Reno or Faith Lutheran, so they came to me and said this is what they wanted to practice on,” said Mello.
Katrina Butalon deposited four of the Tigers first six points with a pair of up-and-under layups. Her second basket gave Douglas a 6-4 lead and the Tigers never trailed again.
Campbell Dedmon finished the night with seven points, including several steals that allowed the senior captain to get out and run the length of the floor.
Dedmon’s use of her one-handed passes also allowed her teammates plenty of easy looks at the rim, including a fourth quarter touch pass to Addie Doerr off of an inbounds play.
Doerr added 10 points of her own while Camden Miller put together a team-high 11 points.
Miller’s length and athleticism on both ends of the floor gave the Mustangs fits.
Riley Mello knocked down two triples, but her impact was felt more on the defensive end of the floor as she kept Damonte Ranch out of the paint.
Talia Tretton had six points in the third quarter to finish the game with eight total.
Douglas fell behind 4-0 to open the contest, but put together a 37-2 run over the final 14 minutes of the first half to take firm command.
Though Mello was excited about his team’s defensive prowess Tuesday night, he wanted to make sure the Tigers aren’t always going in a full sprint.
“We just can’t get caught in that rat race. We have to have the two gears. We can’t just go, go, go. We also need to be able to slow down, execute and take quality shots,” added Mello.
UP NEXT: Douglas (3-2, 1-1) will get to play in its home opener Friday against Grants Pass (0-1) out of Oregon.
Tuesday Class 5A area scores
Spanish Springs 31, Carson 27
Galena 47, Reed 44
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