Midway through the season, the Fernley High School girls basketball team has proved to be the best team in the Northern 3A.
However, the Lowry girls, who have played in the last six Northern 3A Regional Championship games are doing its best to get back to that finale and possibly knock off the Vaqueros.
It was an ugly night back in early December, as Fernley beat Lowry 64-39 in Winnemucca in the Northern 3A league opener.
The Vaqueros entered the night with a veteran group, while the Lady Bucks were returning just three players from the previous squad that played in the state tournament.
That proved to be the only league loss for Lowry in the first half of the season.
The two teams got back together for a second time in Fernley on Thursday, Jan. 23, which featured a much-different game.
Lowry led by as many as seven points in the second quarter and were tied in the fourth quarter, before Fernley pulled away for a 71-63 win to stay undefeated in the Northern 3A.
“We made a complete turn around from when we played Fernley for our home opener,” said LHS coach Melanie Thurmond. “We shot very well and did a great job taking care of the ball. We handled their pressure without any difficulty. However, we were in foul trouble most of the game with Hannah (Whitted), Emily (Backus), Sierra (Maestrejuan), and McKenzi (Petersen) with two fouls in the second quarter and Jovi (Kuskie) had three fouls going into the half.
Lowry held a slim one point advantage, 14-13, after a quarter of play. That lead grew to 31-24 in the second quarter, when the Vaqueros took advantage of the Lady Bucks’ foul trouble and ended the half on a 12-2 run to go in front 36-33 at the break. Fernley made more free throws (22) than Lowry shot on the night (8). The Lady Bucks were 8-of-16 from the charity stripe, while Fernley was 22-of-28.
Unlike the first contest where there was a running clock in the third quarter, Lowry battled back and played basket-for-basket with Fernley tying the game at 51 entering the fourth quarter. The Lady Bucks were down just a handful of points in the final minutes, but had to foul at the end to stop the clock. Maestrejuan and Peterson eventually fouled out late in the game. Maestrejuan ended the night with a season-high 20 points to go with five rebounds and Peterson had 10 points and five rebounds.
The Vaqueros outscored the Lady Bucks 20-12 in the final eight minutes to notch the eight-point win.
“We were only down five points with two minutes left,” Thurmond said. “We were not able to climb over that five-point deficit and it was difficult with out foul trouble to stop the clock.”
Kuskie added 18 points and four steals for Lowry, while Backus and Whitted added six and four points, respectively. Macy DeLong had three points and Emika Viscarra had two points.
Lowry rolls
past Sparks
It was a much easier day for Lowry on Saturday, as it traveled to Sparks last Saturday. The Lady Bucks held the Railroaders to five points or less in every quarter in the 48-9 win.
The Lady Bucks led 14-2 after eight minutes of play and increased the lead to 36-7. Lowry created a running clock in the third quarter and held Sparks to two points in the second half.
“We were able to rotate five players in and five players out for this game,” added the coach. “We had a slow start but pulled away and always held a lead.
Whitted had a team-high 12 points to go with seven steals, while Carly Capellen was a perfect 3-for-3 from the field and finished with seven points.
Kuskie and Petersen each had six points, with Petersen grabbing seven rebounds and Kuskie dishing out three assists.
Backus had five points, Maestrejuan four, Alexus Gomez three and Shanae Smith and Viscarra two each. In addition, Viscarra had a team-high eight rebounds.
Fernley leads the league at 12-0, with Truckee second at 10-2 and Lowry (9-2) is third.
Lowry hosts Truckee on Saturday at 1 p.m., with the winner gaining ground on the No. 2 seed and a first-round bye in the Northern 3A Regional Championships in Fallon on Feb. 20-22.
Spring Creek and Elko are tied for fourth at 7-4, with Spring Creek holding the tiebreaker and Churchill County is sixth at 7-6.
Lowry is celebrating Winterfest this week and hosted North Valleys on Friday night. Results were not available at press time.
