By Gene Helfman

Special to the Weekly

A basketball team consists of five players. Any team that lacks a few subs on the bench stands to suffer if and when players foul out or are injured. The Lopez girls showed up at home on Dec. 17 with a total of six players. It could have been bad.

But it wasn’t. Lopez jumped out early and never relinquished their lead against the Tulalip Heritage Hawks. The score by quarters was 15-5, 24-11, 36-16 and 56-20, as the Lobos dominated on both offense and defense. The total score was two points short of their best output of the year, and was their best performance defensively.

Scoring was led by Jana Gruenwald with 22 points, followed closely by Bree Swanson with 18. Zoe Reinmuth shone on defense with 13 rebounds. Coach Deanna Brant told the girls beforehand to focus on making good passes, taking good shots and having fun; they clearly accomplished all three.

The Lobos boys did not fare as well. Things started nicely as Lopez ran off seven quick points and had the lead. But Tulalip came back with stolen balls, fast breaks and accurate shooting from both beyond the paint and under the basket.  Four of the Hawks’ players scored in double digits.  Tulalip led 35-15 at the half and 63-35 at the end.

With a couple of minutes to go and the game pretty much out of hand, Coach M.R. Buffum replaced his still-hustling starters with subs, giving them valuable game time experience.

Exchange student Louis Adriaens hit a 3-pointer with only seconds remaining on the clock. Lopez scoring was led by Kevin Dye with 12 points, followed by TJ Hobi with 8.

Both teams take a break for the holidays with the next home game on Jan. 7 against Highland Christian.