The Lowry High School boys basketball team is hitting its stride at just the right time. After suffering two home losses in mid-January, the Buckaroos picked up the sense of urgency and are riding a six-game winning streak.
After holding Churchill County to 23 points on Saturday, Lowry turned in another strong defensive effort on Tuesday night in a 65-30 win over Fernley in the home finale in Winnemucca.
"It is the two things we write about on the board before we play," said LHS coach Chad Peters. "It's defensive effort and crash the boards. We are doing that right now. We are playing good defense and we got 40 rebounds tonight. I am so proud of my seniors. I have challenged them hard in the last couple of weeks. I have been doing this long enough and if you challenge your seniors and they can handle it the right way, the juniors will follow. Tonight, we played a lot of bench guys. Earlier in the year our defensive effort and mental effort would slip. We have changed that and we are doing what we do."
Christian Gray scored the first four points of the contest and Lowry jumped out to a 7-2 lead and never trailed. The Vaqueros closed withing three points at the start of the second quarter, but it was Buckaroo after that. Lowry outscored Fernley 39-9 in the second and third quarters to lead 53-20.
The Buckaroos (12-2 Division I-A North, 17-7 overall) scored the first 16 points of the second quarter, with seven of those points coming from Jared Taylor. Omar Guerrero knocked down two baskets and Nathan Lutzow and Gray also hit shots to increase the lead to 30-16.
"Jared stepped out of the shadows a little bit," Peters said. "He finally stepped out and got in that aggressive mode. We (coaches) have been on him in practice and he has been hiding and tonight he finally came back and got back into 'let me show you what I can do' mode. I told him the basketball floor is the one place where he can be a superhero and come out of his shell. He did a very nice job."
Two more big men for the Buckaroos in Garrett Naveran and Nathan Lutzow went to work in the third quarter, combining for more than half of Lowry's 20 points in the period. Leading 39-20, the Buckaroos closed out the third quarter with the last 14 points to lead 53-20. That spurt ran into the fourth quarter, as Lowry built a 58-20 lead, its largest of the night.
"Even though it was not senior night, you want to see your seniors go out on their home floor on a positive note," Peters said. "To me that is as positive as it can get tonight. We held a team to 30 points."
Gray led all scorers with 17 points, Naveran, Taylor and Lutzow added nine each, Guerrero eight, Thomas Schwartz four, Chris Tyree three and Sterling Dennis, Jacob Hales and Roberto Sanchez two each.
Lowry has clinched at least the No. 2 or No. 3 seed and will play Spring Creek in the regional tournament in Fallon next week for a chance at the state tournament.
First, the Buckaroos face Spring Creek on Friday on the Spartans' home floor at 7:30 p.m. Lowry closes out the regular season on Saturday at 1 p.m.
"I am very pleased, but not settling for where we are at," Peters said. "We still have a lot of room where we can improve. The first thing on our mind is Spring Creek."
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