A focused Yerington High boys basketball team returned to the court and pulled out of its skid with a 53-41 Northern 4A victory at home against Lowry on Friday night.
The contest went back and forth through three quarters before Yerington pulled away with a 20-9 fourth-quarter surge as the Lions improved their division record to 5-4 (14-5 overall) and pulled into a tie for fourth-place with Lowry in the standings.
The Lions ended their three-game losing streak and, at the same time, ended Lowry's three-game win streak. Of interest, both of those streaks began Jan. 17 when Lowry defeated Yerington 55-50 in Winnemucca.
"We had some issues we needed to work on; basically, we needed to focus on team basketball again, and that's what we did tonight, " Yerington coach Daron Wildermuth said. "We did a better job of playing our style of basketball, which is good team defense and good team offense."
Jeremy Means scored 14 points and David Hitchcock scored 11 to lead a balanced offense for the Lions.
Lowry led 22-20 at halftime, but Yerington came back and went up 33-32 at the end of three quarters. Yerington shot 12-for-13 from the free throw line in the fourth quarter to help close out the win.
A key factor for the Lions was the defensive play of senior guard Mikey Burtt, who limited Lowry's talented Howard Ceballos to seven points - all of which came in the first half.
Matthew Dennis scored 18 points to lead the Buckaroos, but Ceballos was the team's next highest scorer with his seven.
The Lions play at home again today at 3:30 p.m. against Spring Creek, currently second in the Northern 3A race. The same two teams meet again for a makeup game Monday at Spring Creek.
