The Dayton High girls basketball team helped out its playoff prospects behind key wins on back-to-back nights over the weekend - 37-33 at Incline on Friday and 37-20 at home against North Tahoe on Saturday.
By winning, the Dust Devils improved their Northern 3A record to 6-33 (11-8 overall) and climbed into fourth-place in the division standings, with another key game tonight at home against Tahoe-Truckee. The girls are scheduled to play their game, a makeup from action that was snowed out earlier this month, at 6 p.m. and the boys 7:30.
Truckee currently stands third in the division race with its 7-3 record, including a 58-38 win over Dayton last Wednesday. Dayton is fourth, followed by Fernley at 6-4.
"We have a big week ahead. We'll be playing seven games in 10 days, so this is going to be a good test for us," said Dayton coach Shari Andreasen, whose Dust Devils host Yerington on Wednesday, then visit first-place Spring Creek (8-0, 19-2) on Friday and Lowry (9-1, 15-6) on Saturday.
There was good news for the Dayton girls in different areas this past weekend.
In their win over North Tahoe on Saturday, the Dust Devils gave one of their best defensive performances so far this season as they outscored North Tahoe 11-4 in the first quarter, 10-2 in the third and only allowed 20 points overall.
"The kids played well defensively," Andreasen said. "They were working hard and they were communicating well, and they did a good job on the rebounding end because North Tahoe had very few second shots."
Amandra Sbragia was dominant underneath. "She was definitely the queen of the boards. She must have had 10 rebounds in the third quarter alone," Andreasen said of the 5-foot-11 senior post player.
Also, Sbragia and Lauren Clark scored seven points each to lead a balanced offense in which nine players got in the book. Rebecca Clark contributed six points, Melony Cox five, Rebecca Monzello four, while Maria Weeks, Brittany Hill, Bailey Garcia and Sabrina Cantrell scored two each.
Sbragia scored 21 points and Cox eight for the Dust Devils in their win at Incline (3-6, 6-11) on Friday. The score was tied 24-24 at the end of three quarters, but Dayton came out strong at the outset of the fourth and then held on to win.
"Incline pressed us at the end and the good news was that we had no turnovers against their pressure," Andreasen said. "That's been a problem for us in the past, so it was great for the girls to see they could handle pressure."
TODAY
4A High Desert League
Spanish Springs at Galena, 5:15 p.m.
Northern 3A
Yerington at Spring Creek, 2 p.m.
Truckee at Dayton, 6 p.m.
Northern 3A
Battle Mountain at Silver Stage, 5 p.m.