Prep girls' basketball: Davis holds off Layton

Layton • Ashley Price's 3-pointer from the left side looked destined to send Friday's girls' basketball game to overtime.

"My stomach was going crazy," Davis senior Caitlyn Gibson said. "I had a bunch of butterflies and was like, 'Oh no, it's going in.'"

But Price's potential tying shot hit the back of the rim and bounced high in the air. Davis' Sarah Beecher managed to snare the rebound and get fouled with two-tenths of a second left.

Beecher sank both free throws to lift Davis to a 49-44 victory. The Darts players gleefully jumped and laughed in celebration after surviving Layton's rally.

Davis took control in the third quarter when it started the second half on a 12-2 run. The Lancers started the half by missing seven of their first eight shots, which allowed the Darts to build a 15-point lead with 2 minutes, 25 seconds left in the third.

But Taylor Moore drilled three 3-pointers to close the quarter and get her team within eight points entering the final quarter.

Davis enjoyed a nine-point lead with 2:54 left in the game and even tried to milk the clock. But the Lancers turned up the defensive pressure, which flustered the Darts.

"They were in our face the whole time," Gibson said. "They weren't really help defense. They were just tough, tight man defense."

Price hit a 3 then another basket to get the Lancers within four. A free throw by Livia Treseder made it a three-point game with 19.3 seconds left.

Davis' Kayley Neilson missed on the front end of a one-and-one with 12.1 seconds left, which set the stage for Price's potential tying shot that just missed.

Layton's ability to score inside and outside worried Davis coach Ann Jones, so she decided to focus her team's efforts on stopping the Lancers' inside attack.

"That's as not as high a percentage, but they do have really great players, so we knew that too," Jones said about forcing Layton to shoot from the outside. "We were just a little slow to get out."

Layton took advantage in the third quarter by going 3 of 4 from long range. But the Lancers cooled in the final period, hitting just 1 of 9 attempts from 3-point range.

"We just knew we had to get out on them more and pressure their outside," said Davis senior Jessica Richardson, who scored a game-high 18 points.

Price led the Lancers with 11 points.

"We had a pretty big lead, and I think that's a case where you have to learn to play to win and not play to lose," Jones said. —