WINNEMUCCA - The Lowry High School varsity girls basketball team had its share of troubles in the opening week of the season at the High Sierra Classic in Reno.
Damonte Ranch defeated Lowry 56-33 in the Reno tournament last week, but the Mustangs found it to be a tougher matchup when they traveled to Winnemucca on Saturday.
The second match-up gave the Lady Bucks an opportunity to see how far they have come in just a week.
The Lady Bucks (1-4) held a three-point lead in the second quarter and trailed by a point with 6:28 left in the game before the Mustangs scored 18 of the final 22 points to win 47-32.
"The 15-point margin doesn't show how well we played," said LHS head coach Chelsea Cabatbat. "This was by far the best we have played all year. We were physical, aggressive and I couldn't be more proud of my girls. We game-planned for Damonte and the girls took what we did in practice all week into the game."
The Lady Bucks used baskets from Kyle McClellan, Payton Naveran and Taylor Schwartz to take a 6-4 lead late in the first quarter. However, the Mustangs used two 3-point plays - one at the end of the first quarter and another at the start of the second to finish off an 8-0 run and lead 12-6.
A short jump shot by the Lady Bucks' Alyssa Dendary stopped the spurt by Damonte Ranch and began a 5-0 run by Lowry that was capped off by a basket by Jillian Albright to cut the Mustangs' lead to 12-11.
Trailing 14-11 with 3:12 left in the first half, the Lady Bucks grabbed some momentum as Shelby McKinnon picked up a loose ball and finished with a layup. Lowry continued with a 6-2 run to jump in front 19-16 off a second basket by McKinnon and buckets from Alyssa Jones and Schwartz.
The Lowry lead was short-lived as Damonte Ranch scored seven points in the final 90 seconds of the first half to go in front 23-19 at the break.
The Lady Bucks continued the theme of the comeback, as Albright and Schwartz scored the first four points of the third quarter to tie the game. Damonte Ranch, though, had answer every time the Lady Bucks made a run. The Mustangs scored the next six points to take a 29-23 advantage and did not fall behind again.
McClellan kept Lowry in the contest, converting a 3-point play late in the third quarter and making two free throws to start the fourth period, cutting the lead to 29-28.
Damonte Ranch countered with a 9-0 run in the next three minutes to push the advantage back to 10 points. The Mustangs put the game out of reach with 1:51 to play when Taylor Nutall converted a 4-point play to put Damonte Ranch up 12 points at 42-30. Nutall scored 23 points in the first matchup and the senior did it again to the Lady Bucks with 22 on Saturday. Eleven of those points came in the fourth quarter.
"We knew she was the girl that we had to stop," Cabatbat said. "We did a good job for most of the game. She got hot in the fourth quarter. The girls that guarded her did a good job. We just have to continue to execute and get better. No one knows how much better we played this time around. If we come out and play like we did today, we are going to win games."
McClellan paced Lowry with nine points, while McKinnon, Dendary, Schwartz and Albright scored four points each. Jasmine Marchand added three and Jones and Naveran two points each.
Lowry is back on the road this weekend to open Division I-A North play at South Tahoe on Friday at 6 p.m. and Dayton on Saturday at 1 p.m.
"It is a huge weekend for us," Cabatbat said. "It is a long trip for us, but these are the most important games to this point in the season. We are working on getting better every time we go on the floor. Getting two wins would be huge for us."[[In-content Ad]]
