FOUNTAIN • Sand Creek and Fountain-Fort Carson were each willing to make one concession before Tuesday’s game — neither expected to stop the other’s leading scorer.

So the teams settled for trying to dominate time of possession. In the end, the host Trojans and senior D’Shara Strange outlasted the Pikes Peak 5A-4A No. 5 Scorpions for the 48-39 win.

Check out photos from the game.

Strange finished with 16 points while sophomore Taylor Proctor led Sand Creek with a game-high 19 points.

“We split with them last year, and we know them so well that it’s almost like playing ourselves,” Trojans coach Harry Knight said. “You can’t stop Taylor Proctor — she’s just so good inside the paint. But we just tried to make it harder for her to score.”

Sand Creek (5-2) was able to keep it close early, but Fountain-Fort Carson (5-2) went on a 9-point run to end the second quarter and take an 11-point halftime lead.

“We really slowed it down in the second quarter and started making better passes and boxing them out a little more,” said Fountain-Fort Carson junior Renata Rankin, who finished with 13 points. “A lot of us play together over the summer, so we know them really well and try to play our best on defense.”

Neither team showed any signs of rust as both kept up with conditioning and drills over winter break.

“We were out there every day we could be,” Strange said. “We knew this game was coming, and that we would need to be able to drive hard to the basket and be ready.”

The Scorpions and Trojans combined for only 9 points in the final quarter, and neither team scored in the final 3 minutes, 58 seconds.

“I think that was just frustration and some fatigue,” Scorpions coach Autumn Sereno said. “We needed to crash the boards hard and get some of those rebounds there at the end.”

Fountian-Fort Carson’s D’Shara Strange tried to get past Sand Creek’s defense Tuesday night in Fountain. Photo by CHRISTIAN MURDOCK, THE GAZETTE