It was an evening of excessive foul trouble for Hamilton and Dobson so avoiding that made for a potential major player. Hamilton junior guard Lauren Evans was not lost on the opportunity.

With a trio of her teammates sitting on the bench for most of the second period with three fouls each, Evans carried the Huskies offensively most of the night. She got  help in the second half from senior Chelcee Pullam and that guided Hamilton to a exhausting 71-67 victory over the defiant defending 5A-I champion Mustangsin the first round of the 5A-I girls state basketball tournament  at Hamilton High.

Evans, who has been to three state tournaments and a member of Hamilton's varsity since her freshman year, poured in a game-high 33 points. She scored all her team's points in the second period (12) when Dobson (19-11)  made one of its runs from a double-digit deficit to cut Hamilton's lead to 33-29 at hafltime. Evans made 10-of-17 shots from the field in the first three periods and helped ice the game with three free throws in the final 25 seconds.

Next up for Hamilton (20-7)  is No. 3 seed Mountain View, which beat the Huskies back in December in the NIke Tournament of Champions I. Hamilton reached the quarterfinals last year where it bowed out in an overtime loss to Chandler. Mountain View advanced to Friday's 7 p.m. quarterfinals at Mtn. View with a 63-51 win over Desert Vista.

"Lauren played like a start and we sure needed her to,"  Hamilton coach Jeff Kain said. "The foul trouble forced us to go deeper to our bench and we got good contributions fromkids like  (Shelby) Hartman and (Breanna) Fetters."

Pullam, a senio and most veteran presence on he teamr, scored 10 of her 16 points in the second half.  She was her usual self on the floor and her offense was a big lift given foul trouble of  starters Kyndall Adams, Erin Curry and Cassidee Ranger.

"Chelcee really does it all," Kain said. "The points and I'm sure she had a double-double with what she did on the boards."

Even with those veteran players stepping up, the defending champion Mustangs gave a more than representative account of themselves with only one player having appreciable state tournament experience coming in to the game.

Even trailing 60-45 with 7:28 left, Dobson coach Tyler Dumas sent four of his five starters back in the game at that point for a final assault. They didn't take long to slice the lead under 10 and came withint 68-64 with 42 seconds left on a putback by last year's title-run holdover Katherine Hamilton (12 points). Dobson's answer to Evans was seniorguard  Delia Vasquez, who saw a little time last year and played huge in her finale with a team-high 27 points.

"I'm not happy our season is over," Dumas said. "But I like the progress. They came out pressuring us and I knew it would take time to adjust. What hurt us was having a little less experience in in game, game-planning. We gave Lauren too many easy looks too often..... This was not an effort hing. It was an experience thing. It's a progression."