The Northern 3A basketball tournament always gets interesting when teams have to travel to Winnemucca every other year. But luckily for the Dayton girls basketball team, the home-court advantage won't be a factor in its opening-round game against Yerington at 3 p.m. today.
The fourth-seeded Dust Devils split the regular-season series with the fourth-seeded Lions - a 42-40 loss in the first and a 47-35 win in the second - but the Dust Devils will walk into the Winnemucca Events Center beaming with confidence. In the loss, they held a 15-point lead at halftime before letting down defensively in the second half on the road.
"We let up on our defensive intensity in the second half (of the loss)," Dayton coach Shari Andreasen said. "As long as we play intense defense then I feel good about it (getting the win)."
The key for Dayton offensively will be sharp-shooting Kathy Arias. The guard dropped in 14 points in the win, but had just eight in the loss. When she is on, she hits a high clip from the perimeter, but when she is off post player Rachel Monzelo needs to be active on the backboards. Monzelo scored 10 points in the loss.
"Kathy has a green light to shoot from pretty much any where," Andreasen said. "We're going in hoping she's hitting ... but we tell Kathy, 'If you don't hit don't worry, we're going to rebound.'"
Boys basketball
No. 5 Dayton
vs. No. 4 Yerington
The Dust Devils are coming off a 65-56 loss to the Lions just nine days ago and need to find the form that led them to a four-point win over the Lions in the first meeting quickly.
The two teams meet at 4:40 p.m. today in Winnemucca.
Dayton has found some relief recently from sophomore sensation Dylan Taylor, who has become the team's leading scorer in the last few games. Taylor scored a team-high 22 points in the loss to Yerington.
But if Dayton wins, it will be pitted against the top-seeded Sparks Railroaders, who are 12-0 in league, Friday.