Lady Dogs’ Winning Streak Continues

DAYTON - It was almost as though time stood still when Nicole Lambert got ready to release the basketball for a trey attempt with less than a minute to go in the game at the TOR Nighthawks on Tuesday night.

It was a gutsy move. The seconds were flying off the clock and the Lady Bulldogs were behind, 53-48. They needed a minor miracle to keep their three-game winning streak going.

With all eyes on the ball as it arced towards the bucket, the Dayton High School gym exploded in cheers as the perfectly placed shot drained down through the net.

Lambert gave the Dogs exactly what they needed at that moment: hope, momentum and three very precious points. Asked what she was thinking as she calmed herself to fire outside the key, the senior said: "It's going in. It's going in."

Now, the Lady Bulldogs were within two points of tying the game against a team that beat them, 55-42, in the first encounter of the season. If they won, it would be one of the season's most remarkable comeback victories from a deficit of as many as 12 points earlier in the game.

In came McKayla Bickelhaupt with a run at the key and a laser-guided lay-up to even the score, 53-53, with two-dozen seconds to go. But she fouled on defense mid-court, turning control of the ball and possibly the last play of the game back to the Nighthawks.

In came a bit of luck.

TOR's Cassandra Mendoza missed her first freethrow attempt. A collective sigh of relief emanated from the bleachers, then loud cheers as she misses her second shot attempt as well. Dayton retook possession and again Bickelhaupt surged up to the Nighthawks' bucket on the opposite coast to lay it up for the final two-point score as the clock ran out on TOR's own last gasp.

The team that could surrounded their coach in jubilation.

"We were focused on what needed to be done and we did it," Bulldog Malia Frame said after the game. "Having felt the feeling of winning (in the past two weeks), we wanted it that much more, so we dug down that much deeper."

Head coach Clayton Strong, who predicted earlier this season that a single win could turn his team around, was elated. Having beaten Lacross Washtucna, Walla Walla Valley Academy, Liberty Christian and now TOR, the girls are 4-8 for the season with three league wins. It's the first time in 3 years - not since this year's seniors were freshmen themselves - that the Lady Dogs have been on a roll with back-to-back wins.

"My heart stopped a couple of times," Strong said about the last few minutes of the game. "I learned a lot about the character of my players and they have a ton of it."

The Lady Dogs came out in Tuesday's game with intensity, but struggled to find their rhythm against the Nighthawks. The first quarter ended with the first Dayton deficit at 9-6. The margin grew to 20-8 in the second quarter until Lambert stole the ball and passed it to Lexie Ramirez for a lay-up. Then it was Shelby Smith's turn to fire up the home crowd with back-to-back breakaways to bring her team with four at 26-22 and give the Bulldogs the momentum going into the locker room for the break.

In the race for points that continued in the third quarter, Dayton kept breathing down TOR's neck, but couldn't quite catch up despite a trey from Bickelhaupt and more Smith lay- ups. Courtney Fuller too kept her team in the game with lay-ups and free throws. But until Lambert's trey in the fourth quarter, Dayton suffered a persistent deficit.

"She must have had ice in her veins," Strong said. "It took a lot of courage to do that. She made a hell of a shot to get us back to within two."

The Bulldogs face a tough match against DeSales in Walla Walla on Saturday.

"It's a tough place to play," Strong said. "But I saw a different resilience in their eyes tonight. They're seeing the benefits of all that hard work. They're really gelling as a team."

Dayton vs. TOR 55-53

Day 6 16 16 17 - 55

TOR 9 17 16 12 - 53

Shelby Smith 19

McKayla Bickelhaupt 15

Courtney Fuller 7

Nicole Lamber 5

Jessica Tate 4

Lexie Ramirez 4