Dayton girls beat Sparks, pick up first league win

BY EMERSON MARCUS

Special to the Nevada Appeal

DAYTON " Dayton girls basketball coach Shari Andreasen would have liked to have seen it come earlier, but she won't complain about her team's first victory in league

play this season.

"It's over, done," Andreasen said. "We have been waiting a while for this one,

but it's a good win going into our game with Yerington."

The Dust Devils beat Sparks 50-16 at Dayton High School on Friday to move to 8-12 overall and 1-5 in league play.

Sparks grabbed a quick 3-0 lead when Danae Moser connected on a deep three-point shot from the top of the perimeter, but the Railroaders would fail to connect on another field goal until there was 1 minute, 56 seconds left in the third quarter.

"Our defense was the key for us today," Andreasen said.

The Dust Devil defense forced the cold shooting by harassing and pressing the Railroaders with a size advantage that was noticeable on every inbound. Junior

forward Rachel Monzello acted as a 6-foot-1 wall against every Sparks inbound.

She also performed well on the offensive end with six points, all of them coming in the final 2:30 of the first quarter.

Monzello's offensive streak helped pad Dayton's lead, giving the Dust Devils a 13-3 advantage going into the second quarter.

But it was junior guard Ariella Ruybal who sparked the Dust Devils early. On one play, Ruybal jumped into a passing lane and pushed the ball up the floor before she was tripped at the mid-court line. Her momentum threw her forward as she propelled past her opponent and crashed.

The referee called a foul on Sparks and Ruybal got right back up off the court, as she did several times throughout the game.

Dayton took a 24-6 lead into halftime because of Ruybal's tough play as well as Monzello's ability to grab boards and get easy baskets, and the Dust Devils didn't ease up in the second half. Dayton started the third quarter with a 17-3 run that would give it its biggest lead of the game, 43-8.

Free throw shooting was the only blotch on Dayton's near perfect performance.

The Dust Devils shot 5-for-23 from the line in the first three quarters, but improved in the fourth quarter, as it shot 9-for-12 from the charity stripe in the game's final period.

"They aren't much better than us," Sparks head coach Tony Shaw said. "We just

couldn't shoot tonight."

The win marked the second time Dayton has beaten the Railroaders this season.

The Dust Devils beat Sparks 32-22 on Dec. 22, but that didn't count in league play because it was during the McQueen Tournament, which exempts it from consideration.