FALLON — For the first time this year, the Lowry High School girls basketball team did not play a game in Las Vegas or Winnemucca.
The Lady Bucks made the short trip to Fallon on Friday night to open play in the Northern 3A East and were not the most gracious visitors, beating Churchill County 60-18 to improve to 9-3 on the season and 1-0 in the Northern 3A East.
Lowry found its shooting touch from the outside, knocking down seven 3-point field goals on the night, four girls scored in double figures, as the Lady Bucks shared the wealth throughout the lineup.
“We actually started slow for what we want to do, but picked it up and played a lot better in the final three quarters,” said LHS coach Jesse Zamudio. “During practice, we talked about cleaning up the little things a bit and getting back to the fundamentals and playing as a team.”
Emily Backus scored seven of Lowry’s 14 points in the opening eight minutes of play.
The Lady Bucks held the Greenwave without a field goal for nearly the first six minutes of the contest.
Lowry led 14-5 after the first quarter, but used a 44-6 run in the second and third quarters to break the game open.
Churchill County converted just two field goals in the second and third quarters combined.
“The girls played awesome tonight,” Zamudio said. “It didn’t matter who we had on the floor, they worked together, which was great to see. When they play like this, they are fun to watch.”
McKenzi Petersen started a 9-0 run at the beginning of the second quarter and Backus connected on two more 3-pointers to push the lead to 19 points at 26-7.
Churchill County made its only field goal of the second quarter with 4:21 to play. Kuskie got into the long distance shooting with her first 3-pointer, helping Lowry end the half on an 11-0 run and lead 37-8 at the break.
“We took a step back in practice and worked on some things,” added the coach. “I wanted the girls to shoot the ball a little more. I gave them a little more liberty to do that and the shots they took were good.”
Lowry put what it did in practice all week to work in the opening seconds of the third quarter, as Petersen stepped back behind the arc and knocked down a 3-pointer.
Petersen stands at 6 feet, 1 inch, the tallest player on the team.
“We worked on that during the week,” Zamudio said. "I told her the way they are going to guard us, you will have that shot. She’s been working on her shooting from the outside. She played great tonight.”
Lowry created a running clock at 44-8 with 4:46 left in the third quarter and the Lady Bucks outscored the Greenwave 21-3 in the third quarter, including a buzzer-beater from Mia Hernandez.
Churchill County scored 10 of its 18 points in the fourth quarter with a running clock.
Petersen led all scorers with 15 points and nearly outscored the Greenwave on her own.
Backus added 13 points, including three 3-pointers and Hannah Whitted and Savannah Stoker added 12 and 10 points, respectively. Kuskie netted eight points and Hernandez two.
Lowry is back home this weekend to play Dayton on Friday at 6 p.m. and Fernley on Saturday at 1 p.m.
“You can’t take anything for granted,” said Zamudio. “We need to get past Dayton and then we take on a very good Fernley team. It will be a good game to see where we are at in our league.”
