MINOT -- There's nothing like the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the Class B state basketball tournament.
The Beach girls basketball team looked flustered by the pressure for most of its game against Thompson on Thursday night, but seemed to play with ease in overtime as it got past the Tommies 76-66 in the quarterfinals at the Minot State University Dome.
The jitters seemed to go away in overtime for the Buccaneers as they scored 19 points in the extra period.
Beach went on to a 9-0 run, with junior Brittney Dietz picking up a couple of buckets on the way to her game-high 26 points. Dietz played with four fouls since the midpoint of the fourth quarter. She earned a double-double with 11 rebounds.
"That was hard," Dietz said of picking up her fourth foul. "I had to play smart, that's for sure."
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Beach goes onto the semifinals and will play Carrington at 7:15 p.m. today. Thompson -- the Region 2 champion -- plays Stanley in a consolation game at 2:45 p.m. today.
After a dismal second quarter where Beach was outscored 20-8, it roared back in the third. The Tommies led 32-24 at halftime.
The Region 7 champion Buccaneers (24-0) led by 2 points late in the fourth quarter until Thompson eighth-grader Karleigh Weber tied it at 59 with a basket with 47 seconds left.
Waldal said his team's eventual success came down to switching from a 1-3-1 zone from man-to-man coverage.
"We were kind of creeping up in there and I didn't want to do it," Waldal said. "Finally, we just weren't getting anywhere. We weren't playing the way we usually do."
The switch was effective in containing Thompson junior Whitney Sponsler, who had a team-high 25 points and 17 rebounds.
"It took away our movement a little bit," Thompson head coach Jason Brend said of the Beach's switch to a zone. "It took us time to get us set up."
