Raiders get revenge against Bearcats

Cutter O'Connell hit the floor hard after being fouled late in the third quarter.

After shaking it off, he stepped to the free throw line and made both of his foul shots. The free throws gave Sidney a 30-29 lead with 2:46 left in the third quarter. The Raiders never trailed again.

Sidney overcame a tough early start against Scottsbluff and avenged its only loss of the season with a 43-41 victory on Saturday night at Cabela's Athletic Facility.

The Raiders moved to 19-1 with the win, while the Bearcats fell to 15-4 with the defeat.

Things looked bleak for the Raiders early. The Bearcats knocked down a trio of shots from downtown and built an 11-4 first quarter lead. They led 13-4 early in the second quarter before the Raiders clamped down defensively and got things going offensively.

"Scottsbluff is probably the best shooting team that we've ever gone against," Sidney coach Erik Kohl said. "Last year, they were amazing shooters. This year, they may even be better than they were last year. It's incredible. They got some open looks early on where we had some late contests, and I think the rest of the game, for the most part, there were still some late contests, but for the most part we had early contests.

"You know, if you're there on the shot when they bring the ball up it makes it so much harder than if you get there when they're already in their shooting motion."

Getting aggressive was the key for the Raiders' comeback. Sidney erased a 17-9 deficit with a 9-0 run to get back into the game. Tyler Wintholz dropped in back-to-back layups, followed by a Ryan Birner jumper off an inbounds play and a O'Connell layup with an assist to Birner to knot the game at 17-all. O'Connell's free throw with 50.5 seconds left in the half put Sidney up 18-17.

The only thing that prevented the Raiders from a halftime lead was a last-second trey from the Bearcats' Jonah Wright to put the visiting team up 20-18 at the break.

Kohl said returning to their aggressive ways put the Raiders back into the game.

"You know, first quarter, we kind of played like we did at Scottsbluff. We were on our heels, we were not aggressive on offense. They jumped out to a big lead," Kohl said. "In the second quarter, we were aggressive. We worked so much on being aggressive and playing our style of basketball. So in the second quarter to the fourth quarter, we finally were aggressive on offense. We played our style of basketball. Instead of us being on our heels, we had them on their heels a little bit. We played our tempo."

The Bearcats built a six-point advantage early in the third quarter, before the Raiders erased it once again. Brady Radcliffe's trey from the top of the key cut the deficit to 29-28, before O'Connell's foul shots put the Raiders ahead for good.

Sidney turned a 27-21 deficit into a 34-29 lead in a matter of five and a half minutes.

Scottsbluff wouldn't go away, though. Each time Sidney expanded its lead, Scottsbluff cut back into it. Dru Kuxhausen's trio of foul shots with 24.4 seconds left in the game made the Raiders' lead just 42-41, but that's as close as they would get. Mitch Porter hit a free throw with 4.8 seconds to go for a 43-41 lead, and the Bearcats' Dillon Hernandez missed a contested three-pointer as time expired as the Raiders held on for the win.

Wintholz led Sidney offensively with 12 points, while O'Connell added 10 and Radcliffe scored eight.

It was the second close win for the Raiders over the weekend. On Friday, Radcliffe's trey as time expired gave Sidney a 70-69 win over Gering. It was their fourth win over the Bulldogs this season.

"It's a fun weekend," Kohl said. "This is what high school is all about. You get fun environments, you go play a tough road game at Gering and we found a way to win tonight, so it was a big weekend for us.

"And we have to use this as a stepping stone. Now we get Mitchell on Tuesday, then we play Chadron on Friday and Hastings St. Cecilia on Saturday. So we have another big week coming up where we have to keep getting better."