DAYTON - For the first time in four meetings, a Dayton and Fallon boys' basketball game didn't go down to the wire.
Dayton gained an early 14-point lead and almost squandered that before grabbing a 59-49 win over Fallon Saturday afternoon.
The win clinched a post-season berth for the Dust Devils, who are 7-3 in Lahontan league play with games next week at Fernley and a home game against Lovelock.
Jason Santos, Dayton head coach, didn't like a man whose team clinched a post-season berth after the game.
"We always talk about stepping on them hard in the first quarter," Dayton coach Jason Santos said. "We usually do well in the first and third periods.
"We didn't execute our press break well (in the third quarter). Their press gave us problems. We executed a little better in the fourth quarter."
Evan Lane, Dylan Taylor and Adan Gomez led the way in the early going. Taylor, who led all scorers with 21, tallied eight on three buckets. Lane added two buckets and Gomez added six points.
Falon scored the first three points of the second quarter, but Dayton came back with eight straight points, four by Gomez, for a 28-15 lead with 3:20 left before intermission.
Dayton still had a 13-point lead after 2 1/2 minutes of the third quarter, but that's when things fell apart.
Fallon went on a 12-2 run, cutting Dayton's lead to 38-35 with a little over three minutes left. Dylan Tedford and Ryan Stockard drained 3-pointers in the surge. Dayton missed two shots and turned the ball over three times in that stretch.
Then, just as quickly, Fallon's offense was nowhere to be found. Dayton went on a 9-2 run to open up a 47-38 lead with 7 1/2 minutes left. Taylor had a trey and two free throws to spark the surge.
"We have a young team, and sometimes that shows, " Fallon coach Chip Rutledge said. "The shots stopped falling."
A 9-4 enabled Dayton to stretch its lead back to 13, 57-44, with 2:20 left. Fallon got no closer than eight the rest of the way.
VARSITY GIRLS BASKETBALL
Fallon knocks off Dust Devils
DAYTON - Fallon scored the game's last 10 points to wipe out a 25-23 deficit and knock off Dayton, 33-25, Saturday afternoon.
Fallon improved to 6-2, while Dayton dropped to 4-4.
For much of the game, no more than five points separated the teams until Fallon's late surge.
Dayton led 12-10 after one, but the Greenwave grabbed the lead at the half, 19-18. The teams were tied at 23 after three periods.
Taylor Ingersoll's stickback with 7 minutes 30 seconds left snapped the 23-all tie and gave Dayton a 25-23 lead. Little did anybody know those would be the last points that the Dust Devils would score.
Cady Cordes, who led Fallon with 14 points, scored Fallon's first five points of the final period and the last point of the game with 2:12 left. Jenny Reichel and Shayna Hicks also contributed to the surge.
Dayton went 0-2 at the line, 0-for-6 from the floor and turned the ball over four times.
"We forced things," Dayton coach Cliff Serawop said. "We kept trying to get it into tight spots.
"The girls were tired; they were gassed. That's something that has been bothering us recently is our conditioning."
Fallon coach Anne Smith didn't even realize that her team had blanked Dayton for that length of time.
"We hung tough," Smith said. "The game was close the whole way and we never let up. Dayton is a good team.
"We've been trying to stress defense. We know defense is going to win us games. Defense and rebounding the ball we did well. We really worked on boxing out, and we got a few over-the-back calls (in the second half)."
Dayton led for the first six-plus minutes, but a putback by Logan Faught keyed a 9-3 run and gave Fallon a 17-12 lead with 5 1/2 minutes left in teh opening half.
Two free throws by Kelly Combs and a follow shot by Maribel Ledezma sliced Fallon' lead to 17-16. Cordes knocked in two free throws with 2:37 left and Andrea Ramirez's follow shot made it 19-18 at the intermission.
Ledezma led Dayton with nine, while Combs added six.
JC BASEBALL
WNC gets split in twin-bill
LAS VEGAS - Western Nevada split its Saturday doubleheader against top-ranked Central Arizona at Sierra Vista High School.
WNC won the opener 2-0 behind the pitching of Tyler Spencer, Andrew Woeck and Derrick Pitts. Central took the second game 7-4, snapping WNC's five-game win streak.
"Our guys played very hard all day," WNC coach D.J. Whittemore said. "They fought on every pitch. It's fun to see."
In the opener, Pitts drove in a run with a single. It should have been a triple, but he missed second base. In third, Rayne Raven tripled home Dillon Ness to make it 2-0.
Spencer worked the first five, allowing just one hit. Woeck worked 1.2 over the course of the sixth and seventh, and Pitts got a key out with runners in scoring position in the sixth.
Raven, Pitts, Neil Lawhorn, Ness and Mike Umscheid hit safely in the first game.
Raven started the nightcapo and was tagged with the loss, allowing two runs in 2-plus innings. Austin Richmond also allowed two runs in 2-plus. Brandon Jackson allowed one run over the last three innings.
Alex Schmidt went 3-for-3 to lead WNC, while Pitts added two hits. Bobby Pappin, Zach Hendrix and A.J. Hernandez added a hit apiece.
The team conclude their four-game series today at 11 a.m.
JV BAKETBALL
Dayton girls top Fallon
DAYTON - Four players reached double figures to lead the Dust Devils to a 48-41 win over Fallon.
Ashley Sandy led the way with 13 points, while Muranda Fowler, Makaila Marshall and Cheyanne Strong all scored 10.
The Dust Devils are 14-8 overall and 5-3 in league heading into Friday's showdown at Fernley.
VARSITY WRESTLING
Moore, Joyner fare well
FERNLEY - The Dayton wrestling team competed at the 3A duals over the weekend at Fernley High School.
Joey Moore (220 ) compiled a 6-2 record, while heavyweight Josh Joyner was 5-3.