Perhaps the Lowry High School boys basketball team is going to be OK after all.
After losing nine players to graduation of the state tournament team from a year ago, the thought was the Buckaroos were going to have a down year and open the Division I-A North up for other schools.
With just four players back, and two of those missing significant time in December, Lowry sits tied for the lead in league play and is the winner of seven of its first 12 games.
The Buckaroos finished the calendar year undefeated at home, with a 55-38 victory over Reed on Monday night. Just three weeks ago, the Raiders defeated the Buckaroos 59-52 at the Rail City Classic.
"I thought we did a nice job," said LHS Coach Chad Peters. "We beat them in every quarter, which is huge. We had good patience on offense. Now that we have all our guys back, we are getting used to a rotation. If we don't get caught up in selfishness and I don't mean scoring. I mean who starts, who doesn't start, who is in the game and how many minutes did I play. If everyone does their job and they continue to work their butts off like they have been, we will be a tough team to beat if we continue to get through that. We have a solid core of 12 kids that we can use during stages during the game. Reed was gassed and we were able to go to the bench."
The lead switched hands four times in the opening eight minutes, with Lowry taking the lead for good at 9-7 on a 3-point play by Christian Gray. The senior hit a jump shot and was fouled on the play.
The Buckaroos scored eight of the first 10 points of the second quarter to increase the advantage to 17-9 with 3:13 left in the first half and forcing the Raiders to take a timeout. Jared Taylor had two baskets during the spurt, while Thomas Schwartz and Garrett Naveran each had a bucket.
Lowry opened up a 10-point gap right after the time out, as Nathan Lutzow blocked a shot and Sterling Dennis hit a jump shot on the ensuing possession. Reed was able to close the margin to seven at 21-14 at halftime after making a 3-point shot with three seconds left in the half.
Reed trimmed the deficit to 22-19 in the early minutes of the third quarter, but Naveran, Taylor and Gray answered with baskets to push the gap back to nine points. The Raiders closed within five points at 32-27 late in the third quarter, but the Buckaroos countered with the next eight points and were not threatened from there. Lowry went on to finish the game on a 13-3 run.
Lowry shot 46 percent from the field on the night and attempted just two 3-point fields goals.
"I love that we shot just two 3-pointers," said the coach. "One was a nice shot off good movement and another was a heave at the end of a quarter. We still scored 55 points. We are proving that we don't need to shoot three's with the team we have to win games. We are doing a nice job of running our stuff."
Gray paced Lowry with 14 points to go with four rebounds and three steals. Lutzow recorded a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, to go with two blocks and Taylor added eight points and nine rebounds. Schwartz netted seven points, Naveran six, Omar Guerrero five and Dennis three.
"Christian scored 14 for us, but that was the best defense he played in a long time," Peters said. "He is starting to get back in a groove after getting his tonsils took out. You can't focus on one guy right now."
Lowry was on the road at Reno on Tuesday and lost 57-47 to the Huskies. The Buckaroos are back on the road Saturday for a Division I-A North game at Truckee at 2:30 p.m.
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