Jaden Jimenez hits the game-winning shot.
Lowry and the Greenwave boys basketball team engaged in a classic rural rumble Friday night at the Elmo Dericco Gym.
Throw out the numerous lead changes and heroics on the board. Seconds decided the winner in the crucial Northern 3A game.
With Fallon leading 63-62 with 5.5 seconds showing on the clock, the Buckaroos’ Jaden Jimenez smoothly clutched the inbound pass the near the Fallon band, took a quick look toward the basket and swished a perfect, arching shot that swished the nets as time expired and for a two-point Lowry win, 65-63. Jimenez finished with a career-high 29 points
Prior to the win, Lowry had lost a pair of games to Elko and Spring Creek.
Jimenez, who scored only eight points the first time Lowry defeated Fallon in late December at the Rail Classic in Sparks, carried his team in the second face-off against their historic rivals with 29 points. In that game with almost a similar score, Lowry defeated Fallon, 66-63.
Lowry's Matthew Casalez looks to block a shot.
To say the second game was a nail-biter is an understatement.
The lead see-sawed back and forth for most of the game, especially in the final stanza.
Fallon took a 49-47 lead into the fourth quarter, 49-47 but Lowry drained a trey to take a 50-49 lead and then added a point on a free throw with 6:29 ticking away on the scoreboard clock.
Less than a minute later, Fallon tied the game on Barry Mitchell’s layup and then surged ahead on two Calin Anderson free throws with 4:49 remaining.
Koa Nihoa added a free throw 30 seconds later for a three-point lead, 54-51.
The Buckaroos mounted a slow, steady comeback by taking a 55-54 lead with less than three minutes remaining in regulation play. Anderson was fouled on Fallon’s next possession and sunk a pair of free throws to put the Wave on top by a point.
The final 1:32 looked more like a hard-fought table tennis match with the scoring and tension increasing with every passing second.
Fallon led by as many as four points, 61-57, after Anderson sunk a nice, soft arching 3-pointer from in front of the Fallon bench, but the lead was short lived with Lowry scoring four quick points to overcome the Greenwave, 62-61.
The Lowry High School boys basketball team celebrates the buzzer-beater Jaden Jimenez against Churchill County on Friday night in Fallon..
Thirty seconds left in the game and Fallon called a time out.
Lowry fouled Anderson who then sank a pair of free throws for a 63-62 lead with 21 second left in the league game.
Fallon tied up the ball, but the jump-ball arrow favored Lowry and Jimenez for the late-game heroics.
Lowry toyed with the Wave, though, in the second quarter. Leading 12-11 into the quarter, Lowry slowly increased its lead by working the ball inside near the baseline.
Lowry’s Kayd Garner worked the inside and his basket from underneath the rim gave the Buckaroos a six-point lead before Jimenez drained a 3-pointer and Txema Bengochea’s free throw lifted Lowry to a 23-13 lead midway through the second quarter.
Fallon slowly chipped away at the lead and came within a point 27-26 with less than a minute remaining before halftime.
Jimenez, though, sunk a trey, and with 10 seconds remaining, Garner’s 3-pointer led to a 33-28 advantage over Fallon.
Lowry maintained its dominance in the third quarter until the 3:57 mark when Fallon came within a point and took the lead, 42-41 on Anderson’s trey.
The teams traded leads twice until Anderson’s corner shot with time expiring resulted in a 49-47 Fallon lead.
Garner added 9 for Lowry, while Byron Jimenez had seven and Jovanny Cuevas added five.
Spring Creek 65, Lowry 53
Lowry started off hot against league-leading Spring Creek on Tuesday, Jan. 7, with a first half lead but struggled out of halftime and the Spartans rallied for a 12-point win.
Lowry had four players in double figures with, Jaden Jimenez leading the way with 14 points. Byron Jimenez and Mathew Casalez each had 11 and Conner Nelson 10. Jovanny Cuevas added three points and Kayd Garner and Bengochea two each.
Lowry hosts Dayton on Friday at 6 p.m. and Fernley Saturday at 2:30 p.m.
Lowwry is 6-9 overall and 1-2 in the Northern 3A East,
Great Basin Sun assistant editor Tony Erquiaga contributed to this story.