An already difficult stretch for the Tigard girls basketball team teetered on the brink of catastrophe Tuesday when the Tigers found themselves in a position they never want to be:
Trailing top rival Tualatin on their home court.
“Our halftime talk really knocked some sense in us,” Dani Lyons said. “And we really just decided to pick it up.”
Lyons took advantage of her new opportunity by scoring eight crucial points, Campbell Gray finished with a game-high 12, and Tigard erased an eight-point halftime deficit to notch a get-well 47-36 win over the Timberwolves in a Three Rivers League girls basketball showdown Tuesday at Tigard High School.
The first-place Tigers (16-6, 12-2 TRL), seeking their second consecutive league title, remained a half-game ahead of West Linn, which beat up on last-place Lakeridge 74-33 on Tuesday. Tigard plays at Canby on Friday before hosting Lake Oswego in next Tuesday’s regular-season finale.
A loss to Tualatin (8-14, 6-9) would have been a crushing blow, and the Timberwolves seemed in control after outscoring the Tigers 18-2 in the second quarter to take a 25-17 lead into halftime. Tualatin sophomore Natali Denning scored all of her team-high nine points in the period.
“We knew that in the second quarter we didn’t have enough energy, and we needed to bring a lot more to come out in the second half,” Tigard’s Paige LaFountain said.
The sophomore helped shift the momentum by nailing two big three-pointers after the break. She scored all eight of her points in the third period, when the Tigers took control by holding Tualatin to four points and scoring 16 of their own.
“They always encourage me to shoot, and I need to have confidence,” LaFountain said. “When I was open, I had to just shoot it, and if I stop shooting, I’ll get in a lot of trouble.”
LaFountain credited the Timberwolves and their tenacious full-court press for taking the Tigers out of their offensive rhythm during their barren second quarter. From coach Steve Naylor’s place on the sideline, however, the issue wasn’t Tualatin’s press so much as Tigard’s decisions that would follow.
“We really haven’t had much trouble with presses this year. I don’t think that was (the problem),” Naylor said. “Sometimes we like to be pressed, because it makes us go — we have a bunch of guards. So, I don’t think that was it.
“I think at the end of the press, we were just getting poor shots we didn’t necessarily want.”
Two weeks earlier, Naylor’s team was riding a nine-game win streak and sitting comfortably atop the conference standings with a 10-0 record. Then came back-to-back road losses to West Linn and Newberg, followed by Monday’s bombshell: The Tigers learned they now will have to make do without Natalie Clark, who suffered an ACL injury. The senior was Tigard’s top post player and, according to Naylor, one of the team’s three on-court leaders.
Lyons, a sophomore, came to the rescue Tuesday, going 3 for 3 from the field and 2 for 2 from the line and playing great inside defense in the second half.
“She’s played JV for 20 games and now she’s having to fill out the varsity post position and she’s 5-7, 5-8,” Naylor said of Lyons, who is actually listed on the roster as 5-10.
No matter her height, or her opponent’s, Lyons welcomes the challenge.
“I love playing against the big girls,” she said. “It’s always my favorite. I like to bang against the bigger girls.”
Lyons and LaFountain took turns reiterating that the team’s goal remains to make it back to the Chiles Center for the Class 6A state tournament, where last year Tigard caught fire and advanced all the way to the state final before coming up just short against defending-champion South Salem.
Despite the recent setbacks, do these Tigers have a similar run in them?
“We’re still gonna battle,” Naylor promised. “They’re a scrappy bunch.”
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