DAYTON - There's no place like home for the Dayton High boys basketball team.
With a big 56-44 win on their home floor against 3A rival Truckee, the Dust Devils improved their league-leading record to 3-0, and their overall record to 10-2. Dayton remains undefeated at home, a streak that stands at eight games.
"We ran a 2-2-1 press for most of the game, and they couldn't come up with an answer for it," Dayton coach Jason Santos said. "They couldn't answer our zone defense either.
"We ran a 2-3 zone pretty much the whole game, and they didn't have an answer for that either. A couple of three pointers, but I can live with that. Most of their points came on offensive rebounds."
Truckee's physical style of play poses a challenge for the slighter Dayton squad as evidenced by the 58-38 Truckee win the last time these teams met in December. The Dust Devils were ready for it this time.
"We've been banging against each other all week," Santos said. "They're a very physical team. They beat us by 20 last time we played and we weren't going to let that happen again. We've been working on being more physical all week."
The Wolverines took an early lead, but it was short-lived.
Junior Tyler Firestone drained two free throws after drawing a foul while driving to the basket to give the Dust Devils a 7-6 lead four minutes into the game. It was a lead Dayton wouldn't relinquish.
The Dust Devils were able to build that lead to15-8 at the end of the first quarter, and increased it to 31-19 at the half. By the end of the third quarter, Dayton had increased the margin to 15 points at 43-28. Truckee could get no closer than nine points during a run in the fourth.
Length and quickness also played a part in Dayton's success.
Junior Dylan Taylor was able to get behind the Truckee defense often early, scoring 11 quick points before getting ejected halfway through the second quarter for two technical fouls on the same play, apparently for taunting.
Firestone led Dayton with 16 points. Senior forward Marcos Macias scored 13 and grabbed six rebounds. Junior guard Adan Gomez added seven, five coming at the charity stripe.
The Dust Devils return to action Tuesday night, hosting South Tahoe.