Playing in front of its home crowd for the first time this year, the Lowry High School girls basketball team got off to a slow start Tuesday night against Fernley and never recovered.
The Vaqueros scored the first eight points of the night en route to a 64-39 victory. The Lady Bucks dropped to 0-1 in the Northern 3A and 1-3 overall.
Lowry’s only bucket of the opening eight minutes of play came at the 4:34 mark of the first quarter on a put back by McKenzi Petersen. The Vaqueros scored the final six points of the opening quarter to lead 14-2.
Petersen’s second basket of the night ended a six-minute scoreless streak for the Lady Bucks, as the Vaqueros led 26-4 halfway through the first half. Lowry started to find its offensive flow late in the second quarter, with buckets from Jovi Kuskie and Emily Backus to cut the deficit to 27-9. Petersen’s eighth point of the first half brought Lowry within 17 points of Fernley at 32-15, the closest the Lady Bucks got the remainder of the night.
The Vaqueros outscored the Lady Bucks 19-8 in the third quarter and led by as many as 35 points at 61-26. Lowry ended the game on a 13-3 run.
Kuskie paced Lowry with nine points, Petersen and Backus each had eight, Sierra Maestrejuan and Hannah Whitted netted six points apiece and Bailee Brinkerhoff had two points.
Lowry looks to pick up its first league win of the year on Saturday against Sparks at 2 p.m. The Lady Bucks go on the road to play Truckee on Thursday, Dec. 19, at 6 p.m. and are in Reno on Friday, Dec. 20, for a 6 p.m. tip off against North Valleys.
