Eight great minutes aren’t enough when the games last 32.

Washington had one of its best quarters of the year but still fell to Dubuque Senior, 62-34, Tuesday night in a Mississippi Valley Conference boys basketball game at Washington.

"Scoring for four quarters is tough for us,” Washington Coach Brad Metzger said.

Washington (0-19, 0-15) came out of halftime trailing 10th-ranked Dubuque Senior by 20, nothing unusual for this year's Warriors.

But the third quarter was extraordinary for the Warriors considering they haven’t won a game and were facing a very tall, talented foe in the Rams (16-4, 11-4).

The Warriors went on a 12-0 run to start the half to cut the deficit to single digits.

“We wanted to get one stop at a time,” Metzger said. “With the stops we were able to rattle off 12 straight.”

Washington continued to shut down the Rams' offense even after a Senior timeout tried to settle the Rams. The Warriors held Senior to just 2 of 11 shooting as they outscored them 19-4 to close the gap to five.  Paul Nash led the Warrior offense with seven points in the third quarter while Brock Butterfield chipped in six of his team-high nine in the period.

“We crashed the boards and moved the ball better,” Metzger said. “We worked together more on offense.”

The third quarter ended and the old Warriors and their offensive struggles reappeared.

Washington managed just seven points and was outscored 30-7 in the final eight minutes.

“They (the guys on the court) were getting stops (in the third). I didn’t want to sub. I haven’t seen us battle with a top 10 team like that,” Metzger said. “The guys got tired and we missed some shots.”

The Rams went 9 of 12 as the Warriors' defense stumbled and lost control of the game.

Early the Warriors hung around as the defense battled with the Senior big guys to keep the game within six after the first quarter.

The Warriors faced the season long problem of giving up big runs and being unable to find the bucket in the second quarter when Senior went on a 15-1 run.

Washington went in to the break trailing the Rams 28-8.

Josh Weeber paced the Rams with 23 points.

Washington gets a final shot at a regular season win Thursday at Waterloo West.

DUBUQUE SENIOR (62): Domen Zevnik 2 4-6 8, Kyle Haber 3 3-4 9, Josh Weeber 8 5-5 23, Conner Grant 2 1-2 5, Seth Bonifas 3 0-0 6, Kyle Holdridge 1 2-2 5, Mitch Duve 0 0-0 0, Drew Anderson 1 1-2 4, Jon Powers 0 0-0 0, Lucas Legrand 1 0-0 2, Parker Hammel 0 0-0 0, Austin Clemons 0 0-0 0. Totals 21 16-21 62.

WASHINGTON (34): David Tann 2 1-2 5, Cybryan Moa 3 0-1 6, Sean Bredl 2 2-4 6, Paul Nash 3 0-0 7, Zachary Williams 0 0-0 0, Logan Schulte 0 1-2 1, Brock Butterfield 3 2-3 9, Peter Holmes 0 0-0 0, Jason Oney 0 0-0 0, Austin Bergstrom 0 0-0 0, Lucas Pint 0 0-0 0, Noah Burdt 0 0-0 0, Greg Gruenwald 0 0-0 0, Heath Clark 0 0-0 0. Totals 13 6-12 34.

Halftime – Senior 28 Washington 8. 3-point goals – Senior 4 (Weeber 2, Holdridge, Anderson) Washington 2 (Nash, Butterfield). Total Fouls – Senior 16 Washington 17. Technical Fouls – Washington Bench, Zevnik.