A second-half offensive drought hurt the Spanish Springs Cougars Saturday night in the championship game of the High Sierra Winter Classic.

Spanish Springs trailed by just three at the intermission against perennial state power Reno, but saw the offensive well go dry in the second half and was saddled with a 60-31 loss in girls prep basketball action.

Spanish Springs and Reno were the co-hosts of the 16-team tournament, which featured teams from Colorado, Southern Nevada, the Sacramento Valley and the Bay Area.

The Cougars trailed 22-12 midway through the second period but rallied with an 11-4 spurt and trimmed the visiting Huskies' edge to 26-23 at the intermission.

Unfortunately for Spanish Springs, that's as good as it got. Reno dominated the third period, outscoring the Cougars 18-6 in the tell-tale eight-minute stretch. Tournament MVP Stephanie Rovetti, the Huskies' cat-quick point guard, had eight points in the period to key Reno's onslaught. Rovetti finished with 15 points.

Reno went on to outscore Spanish Springs 16-2 in the final period against a lineup of mostly Cougar reserves.

"I just thought we stopped doing the things we needed to as far as letting them get into an up-tempo game and get buckets in transition," Spanish Springs coach Christine Eckles said. "We were just not a threat in a half-court offense and that's probably due to their good defense."

Spanish Springs senior Courtney Darby kept the Cougars in contention in the first half, scoring 11 of her team-high 15 points in the first two periods against the taller Huskies post defenders. She also had eight rebounds. Darby was an all-tournament pick as well.

"Courtney had a good tournament. She played very consistent, which was nice to see," Eckles said of her all-league forward. "I think it was good for her to play against people that were bigger than her and be successful. That will help her game and confidence."

The Cougars held their own on the glass and out-rebounded Reno 36-35.

Taylor Powers contributed 13 points and Megan Tobano added 12 points to the Reno offense.

Spanish Springs (7-3) led 7-6 midway through the first period after a Darby layup, but it was the Cougars' last lead of the night. Reno (7-2) answered with a 16-5 outburst to take control.

Reno and Spanish Springs will meet again Thursday at SSHS in the league opener for both schools.

•Spanish Springs got into Saturday's night's final after knocking off Cherry Creek of suburban Denver in a tournament semifinal earlier in the day.

The SSHS crew never trailed against Cherry Creek. The Cougars built a 31-18 lead after the fourth of Danielle Beebe's 3-pointers found the bottom of the twine.

Still, the Bruins did not roll over and die. The Colorado club cut the Cougars' lead to 35-31 early in the fourth quarter, but ran out of gas from there. Spanish Springs scored the final 11 points of the game and was never seriously threatened down the stretch.

Darby had 16 points and eight rebounds in the win. Kelly Hernandez tied a Cougars' program record with 16 rebounds. Beebe had 15 points for Spanish Springs.

The Cougars wound up going 3-1 in the weekend tournament.

"We felt that we didn't play very well last Tuesday (at Galena) so it was really good to see the kids bounce back and improve their play throughout the weekend," Eckles said. "That's about all you can ask them to do is work to get better and compete. I was pleased with how we responded to some adversity."