Ever since winning the Division I-A state championship a season ago, the Lowry High School girls basketball team has had a huge target on its back since the start of the season.
As postseason nears, the Lady Bucks have passed with flying colors to this point. Lowry faced one of its biggest remaining regular season tests on Saturday against Churchill County. The Greenwave came into the contest in second place in league play. Churchill County got off to a quick start, scoring the first six points, only to see Lowry rally and win 47-36.
The Lady Bucks improved to 13-0 in league play and 18-4 overall and have won 13 games in a row. Lowry has clinched at least the No. 2 seed for the regional tournament and can be the top seed with wins over Fernley tonight and Spring Creek on Friday.
"It was a tough win, but they are all going to be like that from here on out," said LHS coach Chelsea Cabatbat. "It was tough to get going after our game with Fernley was canceled the night before. It was Winterfest, senior night and a there was a lot of emotion. It took us a while to settle down and get into the game."
Churchill County netted the first six points of the game when Lowry's Alyssa Dendary put the Lady Bucks on the board with a four-point play. The senior knocked down a 3-pointer and was fouled on the play. She also made the free throw.
However, behind the play of Megan McCormick, Churchill County increased the lead back to 10-4. McCormick finished with 18 points on the night.
"She just killed us," Cabatbat said. "We couldn't stop her. She is a very good player."
Lowry picked up baskets from Dendary and Shelby McKinnon to close the gap to 10-8 after the first quarter. When the two schools played in Fallon earlier in the year, the Lady Bucks used a strong third quarter to pull away for the win. This time, the second quarter proved to be pivotal.
Dendary knocked down two 3-point field goals on her way to a 17-point performance and Jillian Albright added a layup to put Lowry up 17-12 and force a Churchill County timeout.
The break did not stop the Lady Bucks' momentum, as McKinnon added two more baskets and Caitlynn Cooper put in a layup off an inbound play to put Lowry in front 23-12 and cap off a 12-4 run. Lowry went into the halftime break up 25-16.
"This is the time of the season where everyone wants to beat us," Cabatbat said. "We just have to be ready to play. We can't let up, because things can change really quick. These are the types of games we are going to be in. For us the postseason has started and you could feel that atmosphere today. It was nice to see us not quit and come back and battle after getting down in the first quarter. We executed things that we needed to."
Churchill County did not go away and cut the deficit to 27-23 in the third quarter, but Lowry picked up consecutive baskets from Jasmine Marchand and Albright to lift the advantage back to eight points.
The Greenwave were within five points at the start of the fourth quarter, but buckets from Dendary, Albright and Kylee McClellan gave Lowry a 39-29 advantage with six minutes to play. The lead looked to be at a comfortable margin, but Churchill County used a 7-0 run to cut the deficit to 39-36 with three minutes to play.
That was as close as the game got as the Greenwave did not score again. A basket by McClellan with 1:40 to play put the Lady Bucks up five points and Albright and Dendary made free throws in the final minute to secure the win. Albright added nine points, four assists, four steals and a block.
"Jillian had a nice game and we are going to need that from her the rest of the season," said the coach.
McKinnon contributed eight points, McClellan six, Alyssa Jones, Cooper and Marchand two each and Naveran one. Marchand and Naveran did their damage on the boards, with 13 and 11 rebounds, respectively.
Lowry hosts Fernley tonight at 6 p.m. The game was originally scheduled for Friday but was postponed due to weather because high winds prevented travel.
The Lady Bucks travel to Spring Creek on Friday for a 6 p.m. tip and to Elko on Saturday for a 1 p.m. start. Those two games close out the regular season.
"The next three games are huge and we know that," Cabatbat said. "We have ourselves in a good spot, but there is a lot of work left to do. There are things we still need to improve on."
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