Lady Raiders 1-2 at WCT

The Sidney Lady Raider basketball team opened their season over the weekend at the Western Conference Tournament in Gering, and the team won one and lost two while they search for a winning formula early in the 2019-20 campaign. Head coach Tyler Shaw said prior to the tournament that he wanted to focus on defense, and let the shooting come along as the season progressed

On Thursday, the Lady Raiders started the action with a blowout victory against a Mitchell Lady Tigers squad that had lost most of its starters to graduation. With no height to block the inside and inexperienced players trying to settle into roles, the Lady Raiders took advantage and cruised to an easy 50-to-11 victory, with the defense suffocating the Lady Tiger's offense while the Sidney starters got into a scoring groove.

On Friday, the tides turned as the Lady Raiders faced off against a well coached and talented North Platte team. The Lady Raiders battled hard, but could not contain North Platte standout Gracie Hannenborg. Trailing 22-to-21 at halftime, Sidney stayed close throughout the second half, but could not take advantage of opportunities and fell by a final of 43-to-39.

On Saturday the Lady Raiders tipped off against Scottsbluff in the third place game. The favored Lady Bearcats were upset by the Chadron Lady Cardinals in the previous round, and Sidney jumped out to to a quick 5-to-0 lead. But the Scottsbluff squad battled back, and ended the first quarter up 16-to-12. After going down by 10 in the second quarter, the Lady Raiders were able to battle back and take the lead back briefly before falling behind 30-to-25 at the end of the half. The dogfight continued into the third quarter with the teams matching each others scoring while playing tough defense.

Tied at 37 going into the fourth quarter, a free throw by senior MJ Johnstone knotted the score at 47 and forced an overtime period. Senior Jaylee Shaw drained a three pointer to open the extra period, but could only score another two points while the Lady Bearcats pulled ahead by getting hot at the free throw line and sealed the victory by a final score of 55-to-52.

Senior Mattie Johnson led the scoring with 19 points, while senior Karly Sylvester battled against double and triple teams all game long while still scoring 9 points in the loss.

Shaw said after the game, "I'm really proud of the effort and fight to be in that game in the end when it felt like they were going to go on a run in the first half.  We were down 10 and were able to battle back.  It see-sawed for the rest of the game and they were able to hit some free throws in overtime to seal the game."

Sidney's lack of three point success was glaring, which is a factor the Lady Raiders will need to work on through the season.

"We graduated players that accounted for 81% of our three pointers last year. We have good shooters on this team, but they are just inexperienced shooting in game time situations. Hopefully with more experience in games, we'll get up to speed."