Lowry dominates glass, Dust Devils

DAYTON — Dayton High basketball coach Jason Santos didn’t feel his team matched up well physically against Lowry, so his solution was to play zone defense.

The problem with a zone defense is it leaves plenty of openings for a team to get offensive rebounds, and that’s exactly what Lowry did.

The Buckaroos scored 10 first-half points off offensive rebounds in building an 18-point halftime lead en route to an easy 64-41 win over the Dust Devils Saturday afternoon.

The loss dropped Dayton to 2-8 in league and 4-12 overall.

“Turnovers (14) and the inability to keep them off the glass,” Santos said. “They shoot it well from the outside. (Oscar) Guerrero hit a couple of 3s. He is very athletic. We just have trouble scoring.”

The Dust Devils scored just 80 points in weekend losses to Sparks and Lowry. On Saturday, Dayton shot a meager 36 percent, hitting 15 of 41 attempts.

The beneficiary of Dayton’s inability to block out was Nathan Lutzow, who scored eight straight points, to stake Lowry to an early 10-4 lead. Six of those came as a result of offensive rebounds, which resulted in two baskets and two free throws.

Thanks to 3-pointers by Jackson Walker and Davis Winebarger, Dayton only trailed 17-12 after the first quarter despite the poor rebounding effort.

Ty Pearson scored five of his six points in a two posession span early in the second quarter, cutting Lowry’s lead to 21-17. Unfortunately for the Dust Devils that would be as close as they would get the rest of the way.

Lowry closed out the first half with a 15-1 outburst in the final 5:23 to take a 36-18 lead into the locker room.

Garrett Naveran started the surge with a layup, and then Lutzow made one of two free throws after grabbing an offensive rebound. Dayton missed twice on its next possession, and Jared Taylor (15 points) worked his way inside for a basket and a 26-17 lead.

After a Davis Winebarger miss, Lutzow converted two free throws at the opposite end. Jon Joyner, who led Dayton with eight points, missed on the next sequence, and Taylor turned it into a three-point play for a 31-17 lead. Walker stopped the 10-0 run with a free throw to make it 31-18, but Naveran scored a bucket and Guerrero drained a trey to end the half and give the Buckaroos an 18-point lead.

Dayton trimmed the lead to 40-25 with a 7-4 surge to open the second half, as Dylan Munroe drained a 3-pointer. However, two putbacks by Lutzow and layups by Naveran and Taylor keyed a 8-1 run, allowing Lory to build its lead to 22, 48-26. The Buckaroos scored six of the last eight points in the quarter to lead by 23 after three, and the bulge remained at 23 as each team scored 10 points in the fourth quarter.