The Lowry High School boys basketball team brought its 13-5 league record to the NIAA 3A Northern League basketball tournament at North Valleys High School last Thursday as the No. 3 seed to take on the No. 6 seed Fernley (9-9).
The Buckaroos put up a strong showing in their first game of the tournament, taking down the Vaqueros 62-32.
“We came out with great energy against Fernley, we played really hard,” said LHS coach Chad Peters. “We wanted to make sure that we got off to a good start on the first night. We kind of imposed our will on them a little bit, that was nice. It was a good night to come out and play basketball, to get ready for the next night, because it is win or go home now.”
Fernley hit two free throws to start the scoring, but Lowry put up a seven-point run after that and the Bucks finished the first quarter leading 19-7.
They Buckaroos stretched out the advantage to 42-23 by the half, and Lowry dominated the second half to grab their first victory in the regional playoffs.
“We did a nice job of defending," Peters said. "We held them to one point in the third quarter, eight in the fourth and nine points total in the second half.”
On Friday, Lowry took on Churchill County (Fallon) in the semifinals and suffered a heartbreaking 72-68 loss in overtime.
The Greenwave came into the tournament with a first round bye due to their No. 2 seed.
The Buckaroos played a strong game, leading 15-9 after eight minutes of play. The Greenwave cut the lead to three points by halftime, as the Buckaroos led 29-26.
Lowry maintained its advantage throughout the second half and led by as many as six points in the fourth quarter.
In the final seconds, Fallon missed a 3-pointer to win the game, but on the missed shot, Johnny Cooley got the rebound and put the ball back in the hoop as time expired to send the game into overtime at 63.
The Buckaroos could only manage five points in the extra session and suffered the four-point loss to end the season.
“We had them," Peters said. "We had every opportunity. I told the boys that at this time of the year you have to have three things happen. You have to play harder than the other team, you have to play really good defense, and you gotta get lucky. We got two out of the three. We played really hard, and we played good defense, but we didn’t get lucky. We missed seven free throws in a row in one stretch. We made some costly mistakes late in the game, but that is not on my kids. There were a lot of things in that game that I could have done differently. I take full responsibility of that loss, because those kids played their butts off tonight. The bench was in the game and the crowd was in the game. That was one of the most exciting high school basketball games that I have ever been a part of.”
Junior Kobe Stoker led all Lowry scorers with an 11.6 per game average on the season, while senior Dorsey Naveran grabbed 9.8 rebounds each contest.
“Bottom line I will take that loss whole-heartedly, 100 percent square in the chest, because my boys don’t deserve that loss,” Peters said. “They did everything that they could to win it, and it kind of breaks my heart, because I have 12 very successful boys that I am extremely proud of. We got better this year and we did some really good things. I would rather lose this game a hundred times with those 12 boys than coach any other team in the state of Nevada.”
