ELKO — The last time the McDermitt High School girls basketball team was on the floor for a game, five of its six players were still in junior high school. Junior Cayla Crutcher played on the Lady Bulldogs’ 2019-20 squad as a freshman.
The 2020-21 season then was canceled because of the Covid pandemic, as Nevada was one of two states in the nation not to play basketball a season ago.
McDermitt was back on the floor for the first time since February of 2020 at the WREC Classic in Elko. The group of six players that includes three freshmen, two sophomores and a junior picked up two wins in three games.
McDermitt opened up with the Elko JV on Thursday afternoon, with the Indians winning 68-36.
“It was good to get back playing,” said first-year head coach Tule O’Rourke. “You could see we were a little nervous out there. But playing those bigger teams is just going to make us better.”
McDermitt was originally set to play Whittell on Friday, but the Warriors pulled out of the tournament. The Lady Bulldogs picked up a contest against the Elko freshmen and beat the Indians 52-36.
The two teams traded buckets for much of the first quarter, as Nicolette Northrup and Laeloni Tobey combined for all eight of McDermitt’s points, as the Lady Bulldogs led 8-7 after eight minutes of play.
The difference in the contest was the second quarter, as McDermitt shook off the slow start and outscored Elko 17-4.
The Lady Bulldogs scored the first 13 points of the quarter to build a 21-7 advantage.
Vina Tom scored nine of those 13 points, including a 3-pointer to cap off the run. Crutcher and Northrup also had baskets in that span.
Elko went scoreless for the first 6:03 of the second quarter before getting on the board. McDermitt
ended the first half on a pair of jump shots by Taylor Killsback to push the lead to 25-11.
McDermitt led by as many as 19 points in the third quarter after a bucket by Crutcher and saw the lead go down to 13 early in the fourth quarter after a6-0 run by Elko.
That was as close as the Indians got, as McDermitt pushed the advantage back to 48-28 after a 3-pointer by Northrup and the Lady Bulldogs cruised from there.
Tom had 13 points on the day, Northrup added 11, Crutcher eight, Palmer and Tobey six each and Killsback four.
“We got off to a little bit of a slow start but picked it up in the second quarter,” O’Rourke said. “We ran the offense a lot better and we played well.”
McDermitt closed out the tournament on Saturday morning against Tonopah and came away with a 54-39 win.
The game was tied at 8-8 after a quarter of play and the Lady Bulldogs led by a basket at halftime.
McDermitt came out of the break on fire in the third quarter and used a 16-4 run to pull away for the victory.
Tom, who is just a freshman, had a game-high 26 points, which included six 3-pointers. Northrup, behind two 3-point shots added eight points and Tobey had seven. Palmer netted six points, Crutcher four and Killsback two.
McDermitt is back on the road this weekend for the Comstock Classic in Virginia City. The Lady Bulldogs are scheduled to play Virginia City and Coleville, Calif., on Friday. McDermitt is set faceoff with Mineral County and Pahranagat Valley on Saturday.
McDermitt makes its home debut on Tuesday, Dec. 14 against Pyramid Lake at 4 p.m.
