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Red Raiders survive battle with Gering, 54-42

While the Sidney High boys' team took advantage of a technical foul call late in the game at Gering on Jan. 9 to eek out a two-point victory, the Red Raiders gave themselves more room for error the second time around.

Though Gering made it interesting in the third quarter, the Raiders pulled away in the fourth to earn a 54-42 win over the Bulldogs at the Cabela's Athletic Facility on Friday night in a Class B District-6 matchup. The win marked the Raiders 12th straight – a school record.

After their weekend of play, the Raiders found themselves in third place on the NSAA Class B list with an average of 44.85 points earned per contest. Scottsbluff sits in fifth with an average point total of 44.1667. Gering sits 13th on the list and is virtually out of the race for one of the top two seeds at districts, which begin in McCook on March 2.

With many of the Raiders feeling the effects of illness and injury, Sidney made no excuses and came out firing from the opening tip. While Jared Ross and Cutter O'Connell missed Thursday's practice, both were in uniform and started on Friday.

"We're always going to get their best game so we have to play hard no matter how we feel," said Tyler Wintholz, who led the Raiders in scoring for the fourth straight game.

Absent from the lineup, however, was Ryan Birner, who sustained an ankle injury in the junior varisty game. His badly swollen ankle was kept elevated on the Raiders' bench throughout the varsity game.

"With so many of the guys sick it was nice to see how much mental toughness we showed," Lane Harvey said. "Toward the end, we really pounded the inside and got a lot of inside touches for some easy points."

After the Raiders rallied in the final quarter to overtake Gering last month, they spent most of Friday's contest in the lead. The Bulldogs' Joses Palomo, who sent the Raiders home in defeat with a last-second shot last season, shook the Raiders with a 3-pointer early in the third to give his team its first lead of the night at 24-23.

With much of the offensive work done by O'Connell, the Raiders followed Palomo's trey with a 7-2 run. O'Connell scored six of the seven points with Wintholz netting the seventh from the free-throw line. A pair of 3-pointers by Austin Hoffman helped bring the Bulldogs to within a point, however, by the end of the third quarter, 35-34.

Gering again took the lead to start the final stanza and last held the lead at 38-36 following a Palomo fade-away jumper. But six straight points by Harvey put a stop to the insurrection. Harvey nailed a 3-pointer for a 39-38 lead and 42 seconds later completed a three-point play for 42-38. Sidney never trailed again.

With the help of Harvey's nine points in the fourth frame and Jake Heeren's aggressive rebounding, the Raiders finished off Gering with a 19-8 quarter.

"Me and Lane were the only one's who haven't been sick on this team," Heeren said. "Gering always plays us tough so we just had to keep fighting in the fourth quarter to get it done."

Harvey hit his first 3-pointer early in the first quarter to give Sidney a 7-2 lead. With six points from Wintholz in the opener, the Raiders never trailed in the first half and finished the first eight minutes up 15-8. Heeren and Cody Frerichs were the only Sidney players to make a field goal in the second period, but Sidney still led 21-15 at the break.

Wintholz finished the night leading the Raiders in scoring with 16 points with Harvey netting 13, O'Connell 10 and Heeren nine. Heeren supplemented his game with 21 rebounds.

 

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