Raiders end post season at regionals

The Raiders' season came to an end Saturday as the Lind-Ritzville-Sprague Broncos came away with the 67-49 victory in the the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association regional matchup at Cheney High School.

The game pitted the Lake Roosevelt team, with no seniors, five players over 6-0 and combined experience of 170 games; against L-R-S, with six seniors, eight players over 6-0 and 186 games in their history.

But the younger team did surprise the Broncos.

"We took them lightly," L-R-S Head Coach Dustan Arlt told the Spokesman Review. "We watched them on film and they did nothing the way we expected them to do and they threw a defense at us that no one has used before – a triangle and two."

Early on, the Broncos were unable to make a basket. LR frustrated the big center for L-R-S, who was not a factor in the first half.

"We have some big guys, and they weren't moving their feet and we just could not finish at all – we kept missing lay-ins," Arlt said.

The Raiders led at the end of the first quarter, 12-9, with Austin Rosenbaum and Chance Garvin scoring all the Raider points.

In the second quarter, the Broncos rallied, scoring 27 points and hitting several three pointers. LR stayed in the game, scoring 19 points. The quarter progressed in a see-saw fashion until right before half when L-R-S pushed their lead to five points at 36-31.

In the second half, LR fell behind quickly as the Broncos came out attacking. The Raiders were taken back by the adjustments L-R-S made and could not recover. The Broncos outscored the Raiders 31-18 in the second half for the final score of Broncos 67, LR 49.

"We put together three very good quarters, but fell short on one quarter, which put us away," commented Raider Head Coach Matt Simpson.

The Raiders finished the 2013-14 season with an overall win-loss record of 13-10. The Raiders finished second in both the Central Washington 2B North and in the District 5-6 2B to advance to regionals. All of this was an improvement over their 7-13 record in the 2012-13 season.

With the potential of the entire squad returning for the 2014-15 season, the Raiders look to build on the success of this season and push for a state berth.

Lake Roosevelt

Nault 0, Garvin 14, Rosenbaum 6, Palmer 9, Picard 3, Davis 0, Redstar 4, Nicholson 1, Black 0, Nomee 0, Louie 12.

Lind-Ritzville/Sprague

O'Neill 5, Saetre 3, Hartz 5, Smith 0, Ruzicka 6, Canaday 9, Whitmore 12, Morley 0, Frederick 15, Becker 0, Roettger 4.