BY DARRELL MOODY
Nevada Appeal News Service
DAYTON " Diminutive Marti Espinoza takes very few shots over the course of a basketball game.
Espinoza took two big 3-pointers and made them both at the end of the third quarter to give the Dayton Devils some much-needed momentum and a 38-32 lead after three quarters.
Those two buckets plus some clutch free throws by Kage Walker, Tannar Wood and Dakota Lee down the stretch carried Dayton to a 49-43 lead over Lowry Saturday in a Class 3A boys basketball game.
The win, which completed a weekend sweep, upped Dayton's record to 3-1 in conference and a share of first place.
"This is what we're supposed to do (win at home)," Dayton coach T.W. Cunningham said. "I'm happy that we're improving and getting better. We still have a long ways to go. Those threes were big shots. We'd had been outplayed in the quarter. We got a quick six and ended up winning the quarter by a couple of points."
Lowry coach Lee Bosch agreed that Espinoza's two buckets were key.
"We weren't even planning on guarding him at all," Bosch said. "We held Wood to 11, and our goal was to hold him under 20. Those little things win or lose basketball games."
Espinoza's two 3-pointers capped a 9-0 run in the final 1:48 of the third quarter which gave the Dust Devils a 38-32 lead.
Walker extended the lead to 39-32 with 7:48 in the game, but the Dust Devils' offense went silent, and the Buckaroos tied the game at 39 with 5:34 left thanks to a 3-pointer by Joel Mendoza, a layup by Brandon Eldodt and a short bank shot by Andrew Stephen.
Consecutive baskets by Wood and Lee made it 43-39. Stephen answered with the first of his two fourth-quarter putbacks, trimming the lead to 43-41. Chris Sikora got it back to four with two free throws with 3:20 left only to see Stephen make it 45-43 with 2:11 remaining.
"Lowry did a good job on the offensive boards," Cunningham said.
Stephen blocked Espinoza's shot out of bounds on Dayton's next possession, and then Connor Conroy turned the ball over. Espinoza made a steal, and got the ball to Wood, who was fouled with 1:06 left. Wood, who was the only Dayton player in double figures with 11, made the first free throw to extend Dayton's lead to 46-43, but missed the second.
Lowry turned the ball over for the eighth time in the second half, as Conroy deflected a pass to Wood. Dayton turned that possession into another point when Walker made the back end of a double-bonus situation for a 47-43 lead with 38.8 seconds remaining.
Mendoza missed a 3-pointer on the ensuing possession, and Lee was fouled with 13.2 left. Lee calmly knocked down both free throws to make it 49-43.
"Obviously we'd like to make them all," Cunningham said, alluding to the Dust Devils' 4-for-6 effort at the line down the stretch. "We got the one we needed (Walker's) to make it a two-possession game.
"Our guys made some good decisions and finished plays. The last two nights we have finished plays. We got our hands on a lot of balls defensively late in the game."
Bosch, meanwhile, had a four-hour bus ride back to Winnemucca to contemplate what went wrong.
"We didn't play very well," Bosch said. "We played hard, though. We stopped getting the ball to the middle against their zone. We weren't patient. Our offense was pathetic.
"Their switch to the 2-3 didn't bother us much. We weren't catching the ball. If you can't catch the ball, you're not going to score. We left probably 30 points on the floor tonight."
Cunningham made the switch just to give the Buckaroos something different to look at.
"I wanted to see what happened," he said. "We were rotating pretty well with it. If something is working, why change."
Two other things hurt Lowry. The first was the loss of point guard David Eastman, who suffered a n injury when he was tripped up driving to the basket in the first half. Bosch doesn't expect him to play the rest of the year.
"Dayton's a physical team," he said. "We're used to it. He got tripped up driving to the basket."
Also, Daniel Westfall failed to score in the second half after scoring eight first-half points. Westfall went 0-for-5 in the second half, missing three shots from close range.
- Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com or (775) 881-1281