WINNEMUCCA - The Lowry High School freshmen boys basketball team finished with three wins in four games at the Longhorn Invitational this past weekend in Battle Mountain.
The Buckaroos (5-3) played twice on Friday, Dec. 13, and beat White Pine 35-19 and Carlin 54-26. Lowry split a pair of contests on Saturday, beating Tonopah 49-29 and losing 30-25 to Pershing County. The games was played with 20-minute running halves.
In the win over White Pine, the Buckaroos used five points from Jacob Hernandez and four more by Joe Taylor to lead 14-8 at halftime. The offensive output picked up in the second half for the Buckaroos with two buckets each from Jed Teichert, Dustin Gray, Salvador Perez and Taylor. The Buckaroos outscored the Bobcats 21-11 in the final 20 minutes.
"It was a good game for us to start with," said LHS head coach Grant Beatty. "White Pine had a lot of freshmen on their JV team. I was pleased with our defense and rebounding. I thought Salvador played a good game for us."
Teichert led Lowry with nine points, Taylor added seven, Hernandez and Perez each had six points, Gray four and Austin Robsion and Brady Lange one each.
Lowry had little trouble against Carlin of the Division IV East, as six different players scored in the first half. Teichert had 10 of the Buckaroos' 28 first-half points, while Travis Hardy added eight.
It was much of the same in the second half as Lowry continued to build its lead over Carlin, outscoring the Railroaders 25-16.
Eleven different players scored for Lowry, with Teichert leading the way with 14. Hardy and Taylor added eight and seven points, respectively, and Robison contributed five. Donavyn Morris and Gray finished with four points apiece, Jacob Barnes, Hernandez and Perez three each, Brian Kelly two and Lange had one point.
"I pulled the starters early in both halves and the bench guys got a lot of playing time," Beatty said. "It was a chance for us to work on things. Our guards have been a bit timid at the beginning of the year and this was a good game to let them get going. Travis had a really good first half."
Another balanced scoring attack helped the Buckaroos to a 20-point victory over Tonopah on Saturday. Lowry held a 32-20 lead at halftime and slowly increased the advantage in the second half against the Division IV South school.
Ten players scored for Lowry, with Taylor and Teichert leading the way with 12 and 11 points, respectively. Darrin Nelson netted seven points, Gray and Barnes had four points apiece, Hardy three and Perez, Lange, Hernandez and Kelly each had two points.
"We started to find our rhythm against Tonopah," said the coach. "Tonopah was really undersized being a smaller school and we took advantage of that. It was another game where the kids got a lot of playing time."
In the tournament finale on Saturday, Lowry was hampered by a slow start in its loss to Pershing County. The Mustangs held the Buckaroos to four points in the first half, but struggled offensively as well to lead 10-4 at the break.
Lowry found its groove on offense in the second half, but it was too late to overcome the six-point deficit at halftime.
Hernandez paced Lowry with nine points, Kelly collected five, Perez and Lange four each and Teichert three.
"Lovelock had a couple of nice players that gave us trouble," Beatty said. "They got after us defensively and we had trouble taking care of the ball. We had a bunch of turnovers. It was a tough matchup for us. We just have to weather the storm a little better. If we hit some adversity, we need to learn to play out of it."
Lowry opens Division I-A action tonight at home against South Tahoe at 4:30 p.m. and Saturday versus Dayton at 12:30 p.m.
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