With sole possession of the AA Dulles District’s top spot in boys basketball at stake, Briar Woods and Loudoun Valley matched defensive wills in the Falcons’ 46-42 overtime win Tuesday night in Ashburn.

Briar Woods (15-2, 11-1 in Dulles) leads in the district standings this late in the season for the first time in the four-year career of guard Yves Kouame.

“It’s huge. For so long we’ve always been the underdog but now to be at the top, it feels good,” said Kouame, who nabbed two consecutive steals in a key fourth-quarter stretch. “We have the target on our back now, but it’s what we wanted.”

The only head coach in Kouame’s high school experience is Mike Benson, who saw his trio of senior guards—Kouame, Correy Facciane and Myles Tate—execute defensively to counter the lankier Vikings.

“When we get pressure on the ball from three good guards, they may not get it inside the way they want to have it,” Benson said. “We take pride in our defense and Yves probably takes the most pride in it.”

In overtime, Tate scored nine straight Briar Woods points—ending with 30, 65 percent of his team’s scoring.

The extra session was necessitated when sophomore Paul Rowley of Valley (17-3, 12-2) coolly drained a 3-pointer two seconds before regulation’s end.

Rowley, who also closed out the first half with a buzzer-beating jumper, scored 11 points. Junior Josh Grimard led the Vikings with 20.