Lady Raiders advance to second week of district play

After taking second place in the league, the Lady Raiders held on in district tournament play last week with a decisive defeat of Oroville after having let Kittitas slip by in a disappointing first-round loss.

"We played good defense, which gave us opportunities to win," Coach Wallace Pleasants said after their three-point loss to the Coyotes. "We talked about taking care of the little things so they don't bite back; we didn't do that tonight."

But planning for the next game, against Brewster, Pleasants noted that they might use a game plan similar to one that had proved successful earlier in the month.

The plan worked. The Lady Raiders rebounded, taking down Brewster Feb. 14 to advance to tomorrow night's game against White Swan.

Lake Roosevelt siezed an early lead in the game against Brewster, starting the second half with a 28-14 advantage. The Bears couldn't recover, and the Lady Raiders took the win at 47-35.

That was a turnaround from three nights before, when Kittitas had scored first and played hard all first quarter. LR was out of sync and struggled to get anything going. Kittitas went on an 11-0 run to build a substantial lead in the second quarter. The Lady Raiders recovered some ground but at halftime Kittitas was still up by four points, then outscored LR in the third.

The Lady Raiders staged a comeback in the fourth, retaking the lead for the first time since early in the first. After a quarter of trading baskets, the game finally came down to the wire as the Coyotes held on to beat the Lady Raiders 29-26. The score set a new District Tournament record for the lowest score in a winning game.

Tomorrow (Thursday, Feb. 19) at Eastmont High School, starting at 6:45 p.m., the Lady Raiders take on the White Swan Cougars, who lost to Okanogan Feb. 14. If the Lady Raiders win, they will take on the winner of the Oroville/Kittitas game on Saturday at 2 p.m. for the final two spots to the regional tournament.

White Swan defeated Oroville 60-32 last week, before losing to Okanogan 55-39.

Scoring vs Kittitas

1 2 3 4 Final

LR 5 5 5 11 26

Kitt 8 6 9 6 29

Bearcub 3, R. Epperson 10, A. Epperson 0, Ensminger 0, St. Pierre 1, Schilling 6, Moore 3, Wilson 2, Priest 0