Despite a loss at state, the Lopez Lobos girls basketball team made history.

The Lady Lobos won their regional competition in February, moving on to the state championship playoffs on March 3. The last time the girls team went to state was in 1982.

The Lobos first played Colombia High School in Spokane.

“The girls were wonderful at state,” said coach Debbie Buffum. “The first game was really a tough one versus Columbia Hunters, who would place third.  That was a very physical game with the team we were playing full court pressed until up by 40 with two minutes left in the game. Without Nici Schmidt (back to Germany after regionals) and out back-up point guard Patience Taylor, who was sick all week, there was a huge amount of pressure on Eryn Dye and Sarah Stanley to break their press, assisted by Autumn Gruenwold and Alexa Ogden … Maddie Rain finished her career with her best play of her four years,” Buffum said. “Marina Steinbrueck played brilliantly both games, playing all 32 minutes the first game and sharing defensive duties on a huge strong post player with Maddie in the second game and shutting her down defensively. Marina and Eryn Dye were rebounding with the best of the best and holding their own.”

The next game was against the Selkirk Rangers.

“We got off to a slow start offensively and spent the game crawling out of the hole, but felt that down by 10 at halftime was not too bad,” Buffum said. “We ended up losing by 20, and really ran out of gas in the beginning of the fourth quarter. But they played magnificently and left it all out there on the court.”

Lopez fans were in fine form, often out-screaming the other supporters in the stands.

“The Lobos played as a team,” Buffum said. “They got a huge taste of the higher level of basketball that we have been trying to work towards, but there is nobody this side of the mountains who can compete with the best 1B schools on the east side. We were the second best team on the whole west side of the state this year. Next year we shoot for being one of the top six teams in the entire state.”