As the regular season wrapped up this past weekend in the Northern 3A, the Lowry High School boys basketball team still had work to do to clinch the No. 3 seed for the regional tournament.
The Buckaroos needed a win over South Tahoe or Dayton to accomplish that feat during senior weekend for seven Lowry players.
In a contrasting variety of games, Lowry did its best to slow the pace down in a 63-58 win over South Tahoe on Friday, while increasing the game place against Dayton on Saturday in a 59-42 win to finish 14-4 in league play and 17-7 overall.
“We started Derek (Espinoza) on Friday night and got him in for his first start in two years,” said LHS coach Chad Peters. “With South Tahoe, you don’t want to come out and play fast, because that’s what they want. We tried to slow it down a little bit and be more controlled. For the most part we did that.”
Lowry got five points from Kobe Stoker in the first quarter and four more by Chance Huitt, as the Buckaroos built a 14-11 lead in the first quarter.
The Buckaroos grabbed a double-digit behind two 3-pointers by Max Mavity and another by JJ Backus. Lowry led 29-18 at halftime.
Lowry saw a 14-point advantage drop to a point late in the game, behind hot shooting from South Tahoe.
“They started just nail 3-pointers,” Peters said. “It’s one of those things where you realize they have shooters. All of a sudden they made some shots. If you’re missing layups and free throws and they are making shots and it’s a one-point game. Luckily, we had built a good lead.”
Lowry made some plays down the stretch to secure the win, including a loop around play for a layup by Michael Casalez put Lowry up by five points. However, South Tahoe came back down the floor and hit a 3-pointer. Moments later Preston Snow dove for a loose ball while the Buckaroos were on offense to preserve the possession.
“Preston looked like a linebacker diving on a fumble,” said the coach. “That was big for us to keep that possession. We saved a possession with his hard work.”
At the end of the game, Backus made a running floating shot to push the lead to three points and Mavity made two free throws late in the game to seal the victory.
Mavity had a team-high 13 points, Backus added 12, Klay Garner scored all 11 of his points in the second half and Casalez and Stoker each had 10 points. Huitt added four points and Snow three.
Lowry gets
by Dayton
Lowry didn’t want to show Dayton too much on Saturday, as the two teams will play again on Thursday in the opening round of the regional tournament. The Buckaroos did speed up the game, something the Dust Devils are not a fan of.
Lowry jumped out to a 31-14 lead at halftime, holding Dayton to seven points in each of the first two quarters.
“Dayton is a team you want to speed up and make uncomfortable,” Peters said. “They like to slow it way down and play at their pace. It was kind of a goofy game. We threw some different stuff in and played different lineups”
Casalez had a game-high 14 points, Snow added 13, Backus 11, Garner six, Huitt five, Alex Ruiz and Stoker three each and Anthony Gildone and Mavity had two points apiece.
Lowry plays Dayton on Thursday at 3 p.m. at Churchill County High School in Fallon,
The winner plays Elko on Friday at 4:40 p.m.
“There are some things we didn’t show Dayton that we want to put in,” Peters said. “We are not even thinking about Elko right now. Are biggest game of the year is Dayton on Thursday.”
South Tahoe and Fernley meet in the other Thursday game at 6:20 p.m. The winner plays Churchill County on Friday at 8 p.m. The championship game is 4 p.m. on Saturday in Fallon.
