Fallon's Megan McCormick shoots during Saturday's 60-46 loss to Lowry in the semifinals of the Northern Division I-A playoff tournament in Elko.
ELKO — The Lowry girls basketball team played three good quarters, while its Fallon counterpart had one.
The difference was a big 60-44 win for the Lowry Lady Buckaroos, who are back in the state semifinals for the first time since 2010.
“It feels amazing,” first-year Lowry coach Chelsea Cabatbat said. “It’s our first time back since winning in 2010, but our season is not over. We still have games to play.”
Lowry came out knocking down shots with Jillian Albright, Payton Naveran and Alyssa Jones helping their team to an 8-3 lead. Alyssa Dendary followed with a 3-pointer, and Kylee McClellan’s triple made it 16-6 late in the first quarter.
Fallon started to chip away in the second quarter.
“We weren’t playing defense,” Cabatbat said of her team’s letdown in the second quarter. “We were doing things we haven’t done since December. We weren’t stopping the ball. We made some adjustments at halftime and good things happened.”
Megan McCormick cut the Greenwave’s deficit to six with a bucket, and Hannah Frank and Ali Tedford scored six straight. Frank’s second basket, which came off an offensive rebound, tied the score at 23.
Lowry retook the lead briefly off a steal and short-range bank shot by McClellan, but it did not last long as the Wave’s Tedford buried a deep 3-pointer at the buzzer of the first half to put Fallon up 29-28 at the break.
“We were attacking the basket and that made the difference,” Fallon coach Anne Smith said. “That gave us the momentum.”
Fallon’s McCormick scored the first three points of the second half, but it was the last time the Wave controlled the game.
Lowry closed the third quarter on a 17-2 run. Dendary scored seven points during the run, and several teammates chipped in as well.
“Lowry has a great defense,” Smith said. “They took us out of our rhythm. We missed some opportunities in the third quarter and they didn’t.”
The Wave continued to struggle in the fourth quarter as Lowry stretched out the lead to 19 midway through the period. Down the stretch, the game turned into a free-throw shooting affair.
“We made some adjustments offensively,” Catatbat said. “We started going to our posts, and they made some shots. That opened up our shooters.”
McClellan led Lowry with 14 points, and Dendary finished with 12. Fallon’s McCormick had 19 points, 13 of which came from the free-throw line.