MINDEN - If only the Douglas High girls basketball team could play Reed every game.
Lindsey Rollins, Andrea Honer and Lisa Doner all scored in double figures and the Tigers recorded 21 steals as they beat Reed for the second time this season, 56-46, on Thursday night at Douglas High.
Earlier this season, Douglas (3-6) beat the Raiders (1-8) 46-37 at the Galena Mountain Classic. Its only other win of the season also came in the Mountain Classic, 53-41 over Mazama from Klamath Falls, Ore.
In the first meeting between the two teams, Emily Haas and Julie Gingrich led the way for the Tigers. But on Thursday, it was Doner, Honer and Rollins who stepped up.
Doner scored six points in the first quarter to help Douglas jump out to a 13-8 lead. The Tigers shot only 31 percent from the field in the opening quarter, a trend that followed them throughout the game.
"Lisa Doner played really well, she really got us going early," said Douglas coach Werner Christen.
In the second quarter, Reed relied on its outside shooting to get them back in the game. The Raiders' Misty Nguyen, who scored a game-high 16 points, had seven points in the second. Her lay up with 4:41 remaining in the half gave Reed its first lead of the game at 16-15. Then the Raiders' Raveon Harrowa, a freshman, drained a 3-pointer to give Reed its largest lead of the game at 19-15.
"When they got in their flow offensively, they were hard to stop," Christen said. "But I thought we did a good job of not allowing them to do that in the second half."
Reed shot only 7-of-22 from the field in the first half, but converted on 50 percent of its 3-pointers. Douglas outscored the Raiders 14-7 over the last 2:49 of the half but still trailed 26-25 at the break.
The Tigers, who committed 21 turnovers against Reed, managed only three turnovers in the third quarter while scoring 19 points. Honer scored eight of her 10 points in the quarter. Her bucket with 1:07 remaining in the third gave the Tigers a 44-38 lead, their biggest of the game before Nguyen's 3-pointer brought Reed to within 44-41.
Reed took only seven shots in the third quarter, making four of them, including three 3-pointers. The Douglas defense was the major reason that the Raiders managed only seven shots.
"They were smaller and quicker than us but we were bigger," Christen said. "We helped each other out on defense, forcing some tough shots for them."
But in the fourth quarter, the outside shooting that kept Reed in the game wasn't there as Douglas outscored the Raiders 12-5. Rollins scored eight of her 13 points in the quarter. Early in the fourth, Rollins scored on a lay up, stole the inbounds pass, then scored another lay up that gave Douglas a 48-42 lead with 6:24 remaining in the game. Douglas made only 23-of-68 shots in the game.
"I don't know if there was a lid on the basket or what but we missed some easy ones tonight," Christen said. "So many easy ones that we made the game closer. But we needed this win and I don't care how we got it."
Douglas hosts Meridian, Idaho, tonight at 7.