NEDERLAND — These days, Jase Miguez is enjoying the comforts of home.

Since scoring 37 points on West Orange-Stark in the Dog Dome last Tuesday, Nederland went 4-2 in the Hardin-Jefferson Marathon and took home the second-place trophy. The very next home game for the travel-weary Bulldogs, Miguez did one better … literally.

And it came against a cross-county rival.

Miguez finished with a new career high of 38, pouring in 21 in the fourth quarter, and Nederland finished up the 2015 portion of its season with a 75-66 win over Port Arthur Memorial on Tuesday.

“He has a great knack for putting the ball in the basket,” Bulldogs coach Brian English said. “But it helps now having Kevin [Howard] playing really well, putting the ball in the basket, Darrell Jones and Adrian Howard coming off the bench and doing the same thing for us. It helps so they don’t key in on [Miguez] so much.”

Nederland won’t play another game until Jan. 2, when it hosts Vidor to start District 22-5A action. So the Bulldogs (15-6) will get a much-needed break after playing 21 games in less than a month, including 13 games (and two tournaments) in 13 days.

“It gives us a momentum going into district, and hopefully we’ll use that momentum to play Central and Ozen that hard,” Miguez said, mentioning the two Beaumont 22-5A powers. “We just have to push it and play hard, work on our intensity on defense.”

Memorial (4-10) has lost three straight and has yet to win in Jefferson County under first-year head coach Kenneth Coleman. Still, he saw some more improvement from a young team that will start District 21-6A play at Channelview on Friday.

“We’re 0 and 0 now,” Coleman said. “We ran into a tough schedule, and I think we’re better for it. I really think we are.”

Nederland led by as much as 36-21 before Memorial clawed to within 52-49 with 6:18 remaining, taking advantage of loose balls and forcing numerous turnovers in the backcourt with its full-court press.

“We try to play team defense,” Coleman said. “We tried to take [Miguez] away early, but when we need buckets and stuff like that, we can’t just concentrate on one person. We’ve got to get it as a team.”

Then, Miguez got busy.

He scored on four layups off the press-breaker, converting one of them into a three-point play to make it 63-53 with 3:34 left. In fact, he scored 17 straight Bulldogs points during the final period.

Nederland also controlled the offensive glass for most of the game, Fourteen of its points came off the offensive boards.

Howard did much of the damage in that department. The junior center finished with 18 points.

“It just gave us more opportunities to score against them, not letting them run out and get transition buckets,” Howard said, referring to the offensive rebounding.

The Titans led 15-13 after one period and by as much as 17-13 before going on a costly 6-minute drought. Darrell Jones had six of his eight points in the period, Miguez had seven, and the Bulldogs took a 34-21 lead into halftime.

“Again, we haven’t had four good quarters,” Coleman said. “It was the second quarter that got us tonight. But we came back in the third quarter and played really hard.”

Darion Chatman had 14 points, Reao Keller 13 and Thailan Wesley 10 for Memorial.

 **CORRECTION: Memorial’s next game was incorrect in a previous version.**