Coming off a Christmas break that saw the Lowry High School girls basketball team drop three of its four games at the Varsity Elite Classic, the Lady Bucks shook that off and picked up two big wins at home this past weekend to take sole possession of second place in the Northern 3A.
Lowry (5-1 Northern 3A, 7-6) overall cruised to a 58-40 win over Elko on Friday in Winnemucca and completed the weekend sweep with a 47-42 win over Spring Creek on Saturday.
“We came out pretty aggressive and played with high energy,” said LHS coach Dwayne Thurmond. “We had our bench rolling with us too. The only thing we need to work on is staying out of foul trouble. We got in foul trouble pretty quick.”
In the win over Elko, Lowry gave up the opening basket of the night but quickly answered with seven straight points, including a 3-pointer by Sierra Maestrejuan and two free throws by Emily Backus.
Later in the opening quarter, Maestrejuan knocked down her second 3-pointer of the night to push the Buckaroo advantage to 10-5. The Indians cut the gap to 13-10 late in the quarter, only to see Lowry’s McKenzi Petersen close out the quarter with a put back bucket.
Elko hung tough for the first couple minutes of the second quarter and trailed 17-14, when Lowry broke the game open with a 14-0 run. The Lady Bucks pushed the lead to double digits at 31-14 and the margin never dropped below 10 points the rest of the night.
Carly Capellen started the run with a jump shot and Petersen followed with five straight points to push the lead to 24-14.
Amanda Draper finished the run with a 3-pointer, when Elko ended its scoreless streak with 1:48 left to play in the first half.
“Our defense played pretty good, but I felt like we gave up too many offensive rebounds and second chance points,” Thurmond said. “That has been hurting us all year. We need to work on that and turnovers. We had four turnovers in the first half, which was great. In the second half we got sloppy with the ball. If we can cut down on the turnovers and the fouls we will be okay.”
Hannah Whitted added four points in the third quarter and Maestrejuan made her third 3-pointer of the night to give Lowry its largest lead of the contest at 45-23. The Indians ended the third quarter on a 6-1 run to make the score 46-29 but they got no closer.
Capellen opened the fourth quarter with a 3-pointer and Petersen added two more baskets to increase the advantage back to 22 points at 53-31.
Maestrejuan had a team-high 14 points and Petersen joined her in double figures with 13. Whitted added eight points, Capellen seven, Backus six, Kuskie four, Draper three, Emika Viscarra two and Macy DeLong one.
Lowry completed the sweep of the weekend, with a five-point win over Spring Creek. The Lady Bucks led throughout the contest, but could never pull away from the Spartans.
Lowry led 28-20 in the first half and increased the lead to 36-25 in the third quarter. Springs Creek cut the gap to 36-28 at the start of the fourth quarter.
The Lady Bucks looked poised to close the game out and led 42-32 in the fourth quarter, only to see the Spartans cut the deficit to 45-42 with 7.4 seconds to play on the strength of a 10-3 run.
However, that was as close as Spring Creek got, with Lowry getting two points late to secure the win.
Lowry heads out on the road Friday to play South Tahoe at 6 p.m. and Dayton on Saturday at 1 p.m.
