MCDERMITT - As the McDermitt High School girls basketball team embarks on its toughest road trip of the year, it picked up two of its easiest victories of the season this past weekend on its home floor.
The Lady Bulldogs continued play in the Division IV East and came away with a 61-23 win over Carlin on Friday and a 73-30 defeat of rival Owyhee on Saturday.
"I am not sure these games will help us for the upcoming week," said MHS head coach Jaimi Wilkinson. "But that is how our schedule has been all season. We win games by 40 or lose one by 30 or 20. If we could find some middle ground, that would be great. We are still not playing defense the way I would like us to. It was a long week and emotional day for me and I probably wasn't at my best."
Wilkinson had a death in the family and services were held earlier on Saturday.
Owyhee kept the game close in the first few minutes of the first quarter, only to see McDermitt end the period on an 11-1 run to lead 21-9. Freshmen Va Draunidalo and Lydia Northrup contributed eight of those points.
The rout was on at the start of the second period as the Lady Bulldogs scored the first nine points of the period to grow the advantage to 20 points, at 29-9. It took Owyhee nearly three minutes to score its first points of the second period.
McDermitt (9-4 overall, 3-1 Division IV East) increased the advantage to 27 points at halftime on the strength of baskets by Staheli Wilkinson, Sharon Sherburn, Andrea Smart and Northrup.
Three-point field goals by Smart and Wilkinson helped the Lady Bulldogs push the margin to 33 points in the third quarter. The freshmen trio of Smart, Northrup and Draunidalo scored the first eight points of the fourth quarter, pushing the advantage to 66-26 with 6:26 to play and a running clock was used for the remainder of the contest.
Smart and Wilkinson paced the Lady Bulldogs with 21 and 20 points, respectively. Northrup added 14 points, Sherburn seven, Draunidalo six, Cheyenne Urban three and Deandra Dave two.
McDermitt jumped out to a 22-10 lead against Carlin in the first quarter and allowed its defense to do the rest. The Lady Bulldogs held the Railroaders to 13 points in the final three quarters, including two in the fourth period.
McDermitt led 38-15 at halftime and was not threatened again, outscoring Carlin 23-8 in the second half.
The Lady Bulldogs had three players reach double figures in points, with Northrup leading the way with 18. Wilkinson and Draunidalo added 12 and 10, respectively. Smart finished with eight, Dave six, Sherburn four and Urban three.
Still on Christmas break, McDermitt opened league play with a road trip to Wells on Friday, Jan. 4, and Jackpot on Saturday, Jan. 5. Wells handed McDermitt its worse loss of the season by a score of 60-32. The Lady Bulldogs bounced back to beat the Jaguars.
"Our game at Wells looked like a team that was still on Christmas vacation," Wilkinson said. "I was disappointed. Lack of effort is something I can't handle and in all honestly that was our biggest problem. The girls just never really got off the bus."
Wells, one of the top teams in the Division I North, ran out to an 18-8 lead in the first quarter and put the game out of reach with a 24-5 spurt out of the halftime break.
"Wells has a very good team," said the coach. "We would have to play one of our best games to beat them. Right now, I think they are the best team in our league."
Smart led McDermitt with 11 points, Sherburn added eight, Wilkinson seven, Dave four and Northrup two.
McDermitt bounced back the next day in Jackpot, using a 23-point first quarter to set the tone. The Lady Bulldogs' four freshmen dominated the scoring, with 58 of the 68 points. Northrup led all scorers with 20 points, while Smart added 15, Dave 12 and Draunidalo 10.
McDermitt's defense allowed just 16 points in the second half, leading to the easy victory.
Wilkinson scored eight points and Sherburn added the other two points for the Lady Bulldogs.
"We shot the ball a little better, but still didn't run good offensive sets," Wilkinson said. "We did a poor job of spacing and our defensive effort was pretty lackluster once again."
McDermitt is on the road for three games this week, starting with Virginia City on Thursday at 6 p.m. The Lady Bulldogs travel east through Nevada to face Eureka on Friday in a Division IV East game at 6 p.m. The road trip ends on Saturday at Smith Valley with a 1 p.m. tipoff.
"This is a huge road trip for us," Wilkinson said. "It will be good for the freshmen to get some tough road tests in them. We just need to get healthy. I will take three losses if we got better. The game with Eureka is huge. It would be nice to win that one. The other two are feelers and we get a chance at seeing what the teams in the other league have to offer."
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