Lady Tigers thump North Valleys

Douglas High girls' basketball coach Werner Christen was just looking for some consistency from his team.

What he got Tuesday night, was one of the most complete team victories for the Tigers in several years.

The Lady Tigers picked up a big 55-27 win over North Valleys in Minden, completing a season sweep over the Panthers and positioning themselves for a shot at the No. 3 seed in the upcoming Northern 4A Regional playoffs.

"We just wanted the kids to be able to go out and play basketball," Christen said. "We were looking to make the right reads and just play.

"We never dreamed of this result. North Valleys is a good team and they were coming off a big win at Hug. We were thinking it would be a four- or five-point game one way or the other."

What they got instead, however, was a solid inside game from their post players and some sharp shooting from the outside to push ahead for the win.

"After the game, you could see it in their faces," Christen said. "They're starting to figure out that when we play our game, we can be pretty good."

Douglas never trailed in the game as Dana Pardee hit two early baskets and Dany Heidt added one for a 6-3 lead.

Bridget Maestretti, who finished with a game-high 13 points, followed by knocking down two 3-pointers to push the lead to 12-3. She had three 3-pointers on the night.

"Bridget knocked down a couple big shots at Elko on Saturday and she continued to show some confidence from outside," Christen said. "(Assistant coach) Rosie (Contri) has been spending a lot of time with the guards after practice, just shooting around with them and it is starting to pay off.

"Those 3-pointers really opened things up inside for us. Our perimeter game has been non-existent for the last two or three weeks. It'll be important for us to have that down the final stretch here."

Douglas carried a 12-7 lead into the second quarter and pushed it to 26-16 by halftime with six points from Jessica Waggoner, who finished the night with 10 points.

The Tigers exploded in the third, outscoring the Panthers 20-6 and closing out the quarter on a 13-0 run as eight different players put points up for Douglas in the quarter.

"We didn't tell them a lot at halftime," Christen said. "We just wanted to start strong in the third quarter. They came out and really got things done."

Pardee finished with 12 points for the Tigers, Taryn Williams finished with six and Katie Buffo, Heidt and Gina Pfaffenberger each had four.

Douglas (10-14, 4-5) can clinch third place in the Sierra League by winning four of its last five games.

"We kind of control our own destiny now," Christen said. "The tiebreakers are in our favor, we just need to do our part.

-- Joey Crandall can be reached at jcrandall@recordcourier.com or at (775) 782-5121, ext. 212.