LOVELOCK - Every once in a while a team has a tough time getting into the flow of a game.
The Lowry High School junior varsity girls basketball team was in the midst of a 10-day break between games as it played at Pershing County on Tuesday morning.
The Lady Bucks (7-0 overall, 2-0 Division I-A North) struggled to get their offense going, but used a 12-2 run in the second half to beat the Mustangs 31-26.
"We just didn't play that well," said LHS head coach Shelly Smith. "We came out flat and never got our offense going. We had a bunch of turnovers and missed a lot of easy shots."
Both schools traded the lead in the early part of the first quarter, with Pershing County pulling out to an 8-4 advantage. The Lady Bucks closed out the opening eight minutes of play with four points from Hayley Hall on a basket and two free throws.
Chelsea Herrera closed out a 6-0 run for Lowry with the first bucket of the second quarter, only to see Pershing County's Alyssa Dominguez hit her second 3-point field goal of the first half to put the Mustangs up 12-11.
The Lady Bucks bounced with six straight points, including layups by Brooklyn Waller and Caitlynn Cooper and a put back shot by Herrera. Lowry went into halftime with a 16-13 lead.
Pershing County came back to tie the game at 18-18 with 4:21 left in the third quarter, forcing Lowry to take a timeout. The break in the action helped the Lady Bucks, as they finished the quarter with the final four points.
Lowry started to get its inside game going at the start of the fourth quarter, as Cooper scored on a layup off a pass by Maddie Mayo and Cooper returned the favor to Herrera the next time down the floor. Herrera added another layup to put Lowry in front 28-18.
"If we take our time, we can make that play work all the time," Smith said. "The girls were patient, ran the offense and we got those easy baskets. We made effort to get the ball inside and it worked for us."
Meanwhile, Lowry's defense stepped up as well, holding Pershing County scoreless for nearly nine minutes in the second half. The Mustangs got as close 29-24 with 90 seconds to play, when Hall hit a jump shot to close the game out.
"I liked the way we play defense," Smith said. "Pershing County is a good team and is well coached. We just looked like a team that had not played in 10 days."
Herrera and Cooper paced Lowry with eight points apiece. Hall added seven points, Waller six and Tiana Herrera two.
Lowry returns to action today at home against Sparks at 12:30 p.m. and hosts Truckee on Saturday at 11 a.m.[[In-content Ad]]
