A familiar face was back on the bench for the Lowry High School girls basketball team this past weekend.
Second-year coach Melanie Thurmond was back with her team in South Tahoe and Dayton, following the birth of her daughter at the end of December.
The Lady Bucks welcomed her back with open arms and a pair of convincing victories to extend their win streak to four and improve to 7-1 in the Northern 3A and 9-6 overall.
“The focus for our entire weekend was executing our offense and working on achieving our game goals we made at the beginning of the season,” said Thurmond.
Lowry traveled to South Tahoe on Friday night and left with a 55-18 victory. The Lady Bucks defense allowed just three field goals in the first half en route to a 32-7 lead at halftime. Lowry outscored South Tahoe 16-2 in the second quarter.
The Vikings equaled their first half total with seven points in the third quarter, but Lowry quickly pulled away in the fourth quarter for the easy win.
Jovi Kuskie led all scorers with 10 points. The sophomore added four steals, two assists and a steal. Hannah Whitted posted a double-double with 10 points and 11 rebounds.
McKenzi Petersen netted eight points, Sierra Maestrejuan six, Amanda Draper five, Macy DeLong and Emika Viscarra four each, Emily Backus three and Shanae Smith two. Backus and Viscarra had five rebounds apiece and Backus dished out four assists.
“We were in control the entire game,” Thurmond said. “We came out with a three-four minute slump in the beginning of the third quarter, but was able to come out of it before they were able to put a dent in our lead.”
Lowry crushes
Dayton
Lowry completed the weekend sweep on Saturday, beating Dayton 52-16. The Lady Bucks opened the contest on a 19-5 run in the opening eight minutes of play and held the Dust Devils to two points in the second quarter to lead 33-7 at halftime.
Lowry closed out the game on a 10-2 run in the fourth quarter.
Eleven players scored for the Lady Bucks, with Whitted leading the way with 10 points, five steals and four rebounds. Backus added eight points and six steals and Carly Capellen and Viscarra each had six points. Viscarra grabbed a team-high nine rebounds.
Kuskie and DeLong each scored four points, Smith, Draper and Petersen three each and Alexus Gomez and Maestrejuan two points each. Maestrejuan added five rebounds, three assists and three steals and Petersen had six rebounds.
“South Lake had beaten Dayton, so we knew coming in that we shouldn’t have much difficulty for the game,” Thurmond said. “We did increase our expectations for the girls for our game goals. We rotated all players five in and five out each four minutes. It was great to get everyone lots of playing time and everyone scored.”
Lowry is back home Friday night to take on Churchill County at 6 p.m.
