The Lowry High School freshmen high school boys basketball team made the hearts of its home crowd skip a beat.
The Buckaroos were making their first home appearance of the calendar year Tuesday and needed every last second to claim a 50-48 win over Spring Creek.
"We certainly made it interesting," said LHS coach Grant Beatty. "We were without a couple of starters but had other guys step up. We got off to a slow start, something that has been hurting us the last few games."
Lowry (12-5 overall, 7-1 Division I-A North) took a three-point advantage into the fourth quarter, when Jacob Hernandez finished off an old-fashioned 3-point play and Jed Teichert added a runner in the paint to put the Buckaroos up 41-33 with 6:36 to play.
Spring Creek answered with a 3-pointer the next time down the floor and eventually tied the game at 43 with 4:14 on another 3-point shot. The Buckaroos reclaimed the lead on basket by Hernandez and led 47-44 on a bucket by Teichert.
However, Spring Creek evened the contest at 47 with 1:06 left to play on a 20-foot bank shot. The Spartans had a chance to go in front with under 40 seconds to play, when the Buckaroos stole the ball and Brady Lange made a short jumper in the paint to make the score 49-47 with 19 seconds left.
"It can't be freshmen basketball without a banked 3-point shot," Beatty said. "Anytime we tried to pull away, they came right back."
Lowry put Spring Creek on the free throw line with 9.7 left, with the Spartans making the first foul shot. Spring Creek missed the second, but got the ball back on a jump ball call. The Spartans threw the ball away on the inbound play and Lowry sealed the win with a free throw with 2.7 to play.
"We came back in the second half and did some good things," Beatty said. "Jed started hitting some shots and Jacob played good defense and got some big rebounds. We did what we needed to do in the last couple of minutes."
Dustin Gray and Lange combined for eight of Lowry's 11 points in the first quarter, as the Buckaroos jumped out to a seven-point lead. The Spartans bounced back with a 17-9 run in the second period to go in front 21-20 at halftime.
Three Buckaroos reached double figures, with Teichert leading the way with 17 points. Lange added 12, Gray 10, Hernandez seven, Brian Kelly three and Salvador Perez one.
Lowry travels to Dayton today for a 4:30 p.m. start and to South Tahoe Saturday for an 11 a.m. tip.[[In-content Ad]]
