Raiders third at districts, move on to regionals

The Raider boys won two games last week to earn third place in the District 5-6 tournament and a meeting with District 7-9's number-two team Friday night at regionals.

This is the second year in a row that the Raiders advance to the regionals. They will play Northwest Christian at Mt. Spokane High School on Friday at 6 p.m.

The Raiders, with a 13-8 win-loss record for the season, will face Northwest Christian (18-7), the second-place winner from the 7-9 District tourney.

"We have our work cut out for us, but we've been in this situation before," Raider Head Coach Matt Simpson said on the team's obstacles to overcome for this weekend's game.

LR needs to defeat the Crusaders in order to move on to next week's state 2B tournament at the Spokane Arena starting on March 5.

To get to this point, the Raiders needed to beat Waterville, then Warden last week.

The Raiders on Thursday faced the Shockers, who almost beat the Raiders in January. This time, the Shockers played out of sorts early on as Chance Garvin hit three three-pointers in the first quarter to build the lead for the Raiders.

As the Shockers fell apart in the second half, LR went for the big win, 73-46.

Garvin scored 21 points. Austin Rosenbaum led the team with seven rebounds. From the three-point arc, the Raiders shot 7 of 22 for 32-percent. From the free-throw line, they scored on 75 percent of their shots.

LR was now qualified for regionals, but vyed with Warden Feb. 21 to decide what seed LR would have. The Raiders fell behind 10-5 at the start of the second quarter and trailed by seven for the rest of the half.

But LR surged in the third to take a nine-point lead by start of the fourth. The Cougars came back to make it a close game, but the Raiders pulled ahead by four in the last minute to win 51-47 and claim the number-three seed and the game against Northwest Christian.

Chance Garvin led the Raiders with 17 points and 10 rebounds. Jesse Louie nabbed four steals. LR shot 7 of 20 for 35 percent from the three-point arc, and 50 percent from the free throw line, making eight of 16 shots.

Coach Simpson highlighted the improved defense at districts. "We've been stopping teams defensively and holding them to where we want them to score and taking away their strengths," he said, noting that "Chance had great games, 21 versus Waterville and 17 versus Warden. He's been stepping up."

Scoring summaries

vs Waterville

1 2 3 4 Final

LR 16 14 20 23 73

Wat 8 13 18 7 46

Friedlander 0, Garvin 21, Hall 0, Holt 0, Jackson Louie 17, Jesse Louie 12, Nault 4, Nomee 2, Palmer 7, Redstar 6, Rosenbaum 3

vs Warden

1 2 3 4 Final

LR 5 16 22 8 51

War 10 18 6 13 47

Garvin 17, Jackson Louie 7, Jesse Louie 12, Nault 0, Nicholson 0, Nomee 0, Palmer 12, Redstar 0, Rosenbaum 3