On Saturday, April 13 the Winnemucca Little League started its season out with a bang with opening ceremonies and a day full of baseball games at multiple parks around town. At 8:30 a.m., 33 teams paraded around the field as hundreds of loyal fans watched them arrive. The ceremonial first pitch was thrown out by Roger Sutton, a long time supporter of Little League since 2008 in Winnemucca,
Coming into its home stand last weekend against South Tahoe, the Lowry High School softball team was looking to secure its place in the Northern 3A playoffs. The Lady Bucks were sitting in third place at 5-2 when the Lady Vikings came to town. Lowry scored two more wins to go to 7-2 on the season and keep a top three playoff position alive.
The Elko Kiwanis Invitational was a very good meet for the Lowry High School track and field team, as the boys snared four first place finishes and the girls grabbed another eight wins. Emily Backus ran for two personal best times of 13 seconds in the 100 meters and 26.23 seconds in the 200 meters for her victories. In addition, she finished third with a leap of 14 feet, 1 inch in the long jump, as well as taking fourth place (6-6) in the pole vault. “It was a good meet for the boys and the girls," said LHS coach Grant Beatty. "Both as teams and as individuals. Emily beat a girl from Elko who was in the state finals last year.”
Last Saturday the Lowry High School swim team went to Carson City and took on the 3A North Division in a unique event. The Buckaroos had several strong finishes from Evan Jeppsen, who took third place in the 100 yard freestyle with a time of 1 minute, 1.72 seconds, and he was also third (27.59) in the 50 yard freestyle.
Arkansas hired Nevada’s Eric Musselman on Sunday, hoping to get a once-proud program back to an elite level. The 54-year-old Musselman led a dramatic turnaround in Reno, leading the Wolf Pack to three NCAA Tournaments in four years after a nine-year absence. Nevada reached the Sweet 16 in 2018, but lost in the first round to Florida this year.
Don Logan spent years trying to get a new minor league ballpark in this gambling city, so the president of the Las Vegas Aviators understands what the Oakland A's are going through in their quest for new digs in the Bay Area. After all, he's had sewage in his dugout, too.
Over 300 riders came out to stage two of the Battleborn Classic to ride motocross bikes at the Winnemucca Regional Raceway last weekend.
The McDermitt High School track and field team went to Parma High School near Boise, Idaho last Friday. Even though they didn’t grab a lot of medals, but the boys put up nine personal record performances halfway through their season. “Parma is a nice little town," said MHS coach Richard Egan. "There were 18 teams there and our kids performed really well. It was a good measuring stick for our relay team, Andrew (Villalobos) ran in place of Alex (Navarro). We had a bad handoff on the last leg or we could have finished third instead of sixth.”
The Lowry High School baseball team went to Dayton last weekend and started out strong with two wins, but the Buckaroos lost a heartbreaker in the last game to go to 5-8 in league play and make a playoff run a real challenge. “It should have been three wins, we didn’t play well in that last game at all," said LHS coach Andy Harmon. "We played well on Friday. It was important to come out with that first win. Ridge (Ricketts) didn’t have his best stuff, but he did a good job of keeping guys off balance. We out hit them and out scored them in the end. It took us until the third inning to get on the board, and we told the kids that if you let them hang around they will beat you.” The Buckaroos spotted the Dust Devils a run in the first inning on Friday, but they came back strong with two runs in each inning from the third through the seventh to take a 10-6 victory over Dayton.
The Lowry High School softball team made its way to Dayton last weekend and pounded out a couple of wins against the Dust Devils. On Friday, the Lady Bucks took an early lead in the first inning scoring three runs and never looked back. Lowry added two more in each of the next two innings on their way to an 8-2 win. Kelcey Cooper and Sierra Maestrejuan both had home runs in the game, while Kayleen Urain, Mackenzie Salas-Begay, and Maestrejuan all went 2-for-4 at the plate.
Cherese Fifield has returned as the head cheer coach at Lowry High School. Fifield has taken over for Amber Lee who had resigned to spend more time with her family.
The McDermitt High School track and field team went to Battle Mountain last Saturday and posted a second place showing in the 4 x100 Relay with a time of 49.97 seconds. MHS junior Ben Draunidalo finished third in the long jump with a jump of 18 feet, 5 inches.
Misty Stene has been announced as the new girls soccer coach at Lowry High School to replace Ed Partee, who resigned this past month to spend more time with family. Stene has an extensive background in women’s soccer that includes a 16-year playing career with club soccer, high school soccer, and college soccer after receiving a scholarship to play at Lake Erie College in Ohio.
Lowry High School seniors Rachel Garrison and Heather Hall went to the Reed Rotary Invitational on Friday, March 29, while the rest of the Lowry track team traveled to Battle Mountain for a meet last Saturday at Eleanor Lemaire Junior High. The throwers had a sound showing in Reno, as did the rest of the Lowry squad at Battle Mountain.
Fernley came to town for a double header last Thursday and took out the Lady Bucks 4-3 and 17-10. The Lady Bucks now sit at 3-2 in league play and 5-11 overall. Lowry led 3-1 in the first game against the Vaqueros after five innings, but they gave up 3 runs in the seventh inning to give the win to Fernley. “They are a well-coached, competitive team and they came ready to play,” said LHS coach Austin Mayo. “We had a lot of missed opportunities. You hang a ball in this league and they are going to hit it over the fence. I feel like we could have won that game, but it didn’t go our way; we left too many runners on base.”