Lady Raiders rally to down Kimball

KIMBALL – With less than 20 seconds to go in the third quarter at Kimball on Thursday night, the Sidney High girls' basketball team found themselves with the biggest deficit either squad had faced all night.

Then Emily Mahr started to heat up.

With the help of Mahr's hot hand, the Raiders took control of the game over the final 8:17 to win 46-38 against the Kimball Longhorns (4-3). The Raiders evened their record at 5-5 and remain at 1-0 in District B-6.

For the Raiders, they will have little time to enjoy the victory as they face games on three consecutive nights – including an important district match up at Gering on Friday night. Another district foe, McCook, visits the Cabela's Athletic Facility on Saturday.

Mahr led the Raiders with 16 points, which included four three pointers. Maddi Porter also had double figures with 10.

Danika Daum topped the list of Longhorns' scorers with 17 points while Madison Biesecker dropped in nine.

"A lot of people call this game a rivalry and this can be a tough place to play," said Vanessa Riley, who helped begin the Raiders' comeback. "Kimball always seems to be athletic so they're a team we always have to respect."

Throughout a see-saw battle in which neither team could gain more than a four-point advantage, it looked like an ominous sign when Kimball broke the ice by taking a five-point lead in the final half minute of the third quarter.

But the Longhorns' lead was brief.

When Riley started the comeback on a layup assisted by Mahr, it was the beginning of an 11-0 run after which the Raiders never again trailed. Just 13 seconds after the Riley deuce, Mahr drained her second three of the game and first of three in a row.

After hitting a trey with four seconds left in the third, Mahr almost scored another quick two. She made a quick steal in the back court and sank a short jumper – but it was just after the buzzer sounded.

"I wasn't feeling very comfortable with my shot during junior varsity warmups," Mahr said. "But after hitting a couple of threes in the JV game, I felt more confident coming into the varsity game."

Maddie Stafford, who assisted on several of Mahr's hoops, saw how well Mahr was shooting in the earlier game.

"She hit two (three-pointers) in the JV game so we could see she was feeling it," Stafford said. "We have some set plays for her and it worked out really well at just the right time."

Mahr couldn't have looked any more comfortable when she opened the fourth period like she ended the third. She disturbed the twine from beyond the arc twice within the first 1:15. When her personal 9-0 run had run its course, the Raiders turned a five-point deficit into a six-point lead.

"For a while there, we were just trying to hit anything from the outside," said Sidney head coach Tyler Shaw. "She was able to get a few open looks and she hit them."

The Raiders fell behind quickly in the opening moments when the Longhorns took a 4-0 lead. Midway through the period, Mahr hit her first three of the night to give Sidney its edge at 5-4 after Porter had buried a pair of free throws. The back-and-forth continued until the first eight minutes ended with Kimball holding a 9-8 advantage.

Savanna Rosenbaum took back the lead for Sidney in the second quarter and Porter sank two more freebies for a 12-9 lead. Daum and Biesecker played well in defeat as the pair often answered mini Sidney runs. Though the Raiders took a 17-15 lead at the half, Daum quickly erased the lead to open the third. Late in the third quarter a pair of free throws by Biesecker gave the Longhorns their short lived five-point edge.

The Raiders' date with Bulldogs (3-6, 1-0) is scheduled to get underway at 5:30 p.m. Friday in Gering.