By Bruce Karnick

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The eight inches of snow on Feb. 22 caused a lot of chaos around Hastings, especially for the schools, but perhaps the delay helped the Raider boys basketball team earn their fifth win of the season at Hill Murray.

Hastings made the road trip to St. Paul two days later than planned but kicked the game off with a 33-point first half, led by Jonathon Watson and Owen Bernatz, and a stymying defense that held the Pioneers to just 24. The second half was very close with Hastings having a one-point advantage for that half, the game finished 71-61 Hastings.

Watson led scoring with 17 and Bernatz had 11. Will Hubbard, Kelvin Maher and Axel Arnold each had eight.

With the postponed game, Hastings had to play back-to-back and took on Simley on Feb 25. After the first half, Simley had the 37-30 lead. Hastings was unable to overcome the seven-point deficit and lost 72-60. Hubbard led the Raiders in scoring with 18, Bernats had 11 again, Kellen Nuytten and Watson each had 10.

The Raiders travel to St. Thomas Academy on Mar. 4 for the regular season finale at 7 p.m. The section placement meeting is likely to be the morning of March 5 where the Raiders can only move up in the section. They currently sit in last place in the section and with a section record of 0-2, they are not likely to move up in the rankings and will face the number one seed in the first round of the section playoffs. As of this writing, Eastview is the number one team in the section.