Thanks to a red hot Yerington High boys basketball team, the Northern 3A race just keeps becoming tighter.
Yerington pulled away in the fourth quarter for a 68-53 win at Dayton on Wednesday. The Lions moved into a first place tie with the Dust Devils at 8-4 in league play. Right behind is Spring Creek, who beat Lowry on Wednesday. The Spartans are 7-4 and Lowry is 7-5.
The Lions are in good position as far as tiebreakers are concerned since they swept Spring Creek and beat Dayton in the second round. The regular season champion will host the Northern 3A playoffs.
Dayton will have to travel to Spring Creek and Lowry this weekend while Yerington continues leage play at North Tahoe on Saturday.
"What a great atmosphere," Yerington coach Daron Wildermuth said. "Obviously it was a big win for us."
Yerington jumped out to a 24-17 lead after one quarter before Dayton closed to within 31-30 at halftime. Dayton's Trent Wood scored 22 of his 26 points in the first half. "Obviously finding a way to stop Trent Wood was a key," Wildermuth said.
The Lions took a 46-40 lead into the fourth quarter. Dayton scored to open the quarter to cut the deficit to 46-42. But Yerington went on a run in which it hit three three-pointers and Dayton couldn't recover. Yerington hit six threes, led by Ryan Rife, who hit four on his way to scoring 24 points.
"They got hot in the fourth quarter and we weren't able to contain it," Dayton coach Rob Streeter said. "We let them have two big quarters. "Both teams played extremely hard."
Wood and Danny Hopper each had a double double for Dayton as Wood added 12 rebounds and Hopper had 10 points and 10 rebounds. Dylan Johnson scored 11 points and Mike Burt added 10 points for Yerington.
DAYTON GIRLS 56, YERINGTON 35
Amanda Sbragia and Rebecca Monzello scored 16 points, Rebecca Clark had five points, Lauren Clark had four points, Bailey Garcia had three points, Sabrina Cantrell, Melony Cox, Maria Weeks and Brittany Hill all had two points and Amanda Brandenburg added one point in the win for the Dayton girls basketball team (8-4 in league). Michelle Freland led Yerington with nine points.