For the second straight outing, the offensive well went dry for the Spanish Springs girls basketball team. The Cougars were limited to their season-low point total and were stuck with a 40-27 loss in the High Desert League opener for both schools.

The drought comes five days after the two teams met in the championship game of the High Sierra Winter Classic, the 16-team tournament they co-host. Reno posted a 60-31 victory in the previous meeting.

“I’m really happy with how we played on the defensive end of the floor. We just did not play well enough on the offensive end,” Spanish Springs coach Christine Eckles said. “I think the main thing was we wanted to limit the number of transition baskets they get because they’re so good in transition. And I think we did a good job of that. We got back.”

Like the temperatures outside Thursday night, the Cougar shooters were ice cold. Spanish Springs shot just 11-of-42 from the field, 26 percent.

The league foes were knotted at 5-5 late in the first period, but Reno outscored Spanish Springs 15-5 through the final 10 minutes of the first half and grabbed a 20-10 edge at the intermission.

The Huskies pushed their lead to 24-10 two minutes into the third period, but the Cougars answered with a 6-0 spurt. All three SSHS buckets came in transition and off forced Reno turnovers. Tiffany Lang capped the mini burst with a layup that got her Purple and Teal to close the gap to eight, 24-16.

That’s as good as it got for Spanish Springs as Reno answered with eight unanswered points of its own. The Cougars never got closer than 12 the rest of the way.

On a positive note for Cougar fans, Spanish Springs still turned in an impressive, determined defensive effort. The Cougars held Reno to its season low offensive output. Reno’s lowest point total before Thursday was its 53 against Centennial last week.

“Our physical effort is there but our mental effort is lacking,” Reno coach Shane Foster said. “It’s tough to play somebody back-to-back. Neither team shot the ball very well. The score indicates a defensive effort but I think it was more a lack of neither team being able to knock down open shots and both teams had open shots. I don’t think either team shot as well as they can.”

Reno shooters made good on 17-of-39 field-goal attempts, but were hurt by an SSHS squad that forced 24 Huskies turnovers.

Reno (8-2, 1-0 HDL) helped its cause by out-rebounding Spanish Springs squad 40-31. In addition the Huskies held Cougars leading leading scorer Courtney Darby to two points. She hung 16 on them in the tourney title tilt.

“We challenged our post players to step up on the defensive end,” Foster said. “I think our posts were solid tonight ... They did a better job on Darby. She’d hurt us a couple nights before and I think they took that personal. She didn’t get as many open looks. She made them look silly before.”

Eckles admitted that the Huskies improved efforts on Darby hurt her team’s offensive rhythm.

“I think our staff has to take some of that. Did we get her the ball and enough touches?” Eckles said. “But also when she did get it, they sent two people at her. Plus, we weren’t able to knock down the shots that we needed that could have opened up the game for her.”

Neither team had a player hit for double digits in the scoring column. Caitlin McKinney and Ari James scored 9 and 8 points to lead Spanish Springs.

Liz Messick paced Reno’s offense with 8 points while Stephanie Rovetti and Taylor Powers both chipped in 7.

Spanish Springs (7-4, 0-1) will try to get off its two-game skid Saturday when it goes to Carson for a non-league affair, slated for 3 p.m.

BOYS

At the Rosemont Roundup in Sacramento, Spanish Springs posted a 64-51 first-round victory over Armijo High of Fairfield, Calif.

Spanish Springs got out to a 33-23 lead at halftime and never looked back.

Taelor Marchbanks and Dan Lide scored 14 and 11 points respectively for the SSHS cagers.

Spanish Springs improved to 8-1 overall and bounced back after its first loss of the season — Tuesday at Reno.

Despite the win, Spanish Springs coach Kyle Penney was frustrated with his team’s performance.

“We were we lethargic. You could tell early on that we had no energy. It was ugly basketball,” Penney said. “We couldn’t score or defend. I was more stressed about how bad we looked as opposed to ‘are we going to win the game.

“We just weren’t ready to play. We probably thought we could stroll in and take care of it. And we did for the most part but it wasn’t as clean as I’d like it to be.”

Spanish Springs will face Capital Christian at 8 p.m. Friday in a tourney semifinal.