WINNEMUCCA - The Lowry High School varsity volleyball team was on the road last weekend to face familiar foes in Dayton and Fernley.
The two Lyon County schools played in the championship match of the State Farm Volleyball Classic in early September hosted by the Lady Bucks. Lowry played both teams in the tournament, which did not count in the league standings, but the two road matches did signal the start of the Division I-A North season.
Lowry (3-10, 0-2 Division I-A North) battled with Dayton on Friday, Sept. 7, but was defeated 25-14, 25-20 and 25-22. The Lady Bucks made the trip back to Fernley on Saturday, where they lost 25-11, 25-14 and 25-15.
"We actually played pretty good against Dayton," said LHS head coach Bob Rice. "We had them beat in the third game but let them back in it, and they rallied to beat us. We had things going good for us."
Lowry led 22-18 in the third game, when Dayton rallied for the final seven points off the serve of Madi Foley.
"We just had trouble passing the ball off of Madi's serve," Rice said. "She got hot and we could not stop her."
Rachel Sigurdson had a team-high six kills for the Lady Bucks, to go with three digs and one ace. Paige Thiede finished with three kills, three digs and two blocks, and Juliana Velasco had two kills, two blocks and two digs. Ere Higbee and Stephanie Sappington had five and four assists, respectively, while Sappington added eight digs and Higbee six digs.
Jessica Jensen ended with five blocks, three digs and one ace, and Cortni Welch had a team-high 13 digs.
Lowry looked to improve from the night before, but had its troubles losing by double-digits in every set to Fernley.
"I was hopeful we could get a win after we played on Friday, but we didn't do much well against Fernley," Rice said. "I am not sure where our problems were but we had no enthusiasm. We sat in the motel for much of the morning but that is an excuse we can't use. We have to figure a way to get fired up right away. We played them close in the beginning of each set, but just hit a wall midway through each set."
Velasco and Sigurdson each had three kills to lead the Lady Bucks, with Velasco adding three assists and two blocks. Higbee had a team-high three aces to go with six assists and one dig. Jensen led the team with three blocks, along with two aces and one kill.
Lowry hosts South Tahoe tonight at 6 p.m. and travels to Fallon Saturday to play Churchill County at 1 p.m.
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