The Raider Girls Basketball team (16-8) was riding a seven-game win streak as they entered last week with games against South St. Paul (815) and Mahtomedi (17-5). Hastings first travelled to South St. Paul to take on the Packers then played host to the Zephyrs.

At South St. Paul, Hastings dominated from the start thanks to the Raiders defense plus Haley Strain’s and Keagan McVicker’s presence under the rim. Strain nabbed 10 rebounds and McVicker eight. Hastings had eight steals and kept the Packer offense frustrated all night. By the end of the first half, Hastings was up 31-17.

The frustrating defense poured it on even more in the second half forcing the Packers to take low percentage or hurried shots, resulting in a plethora of missed shots, a key aspect to this defense. On the opposite end, when the Raiders were shooting, they were taking the good, clean shots and seeing them fall more often than not.

At the end of the game, Hastings had held the Packers to just six second half points, winning 60-23. McVicker led with 23 points and Strain had 22.

The game against Mahtomedi was a bit trickier for the Raiders defense to work their magic. The Raider defense can put average teams in a bad spot, forcing them into lower percentage shots. Against a good team, those lower percentage shots become makeable as good teams tend to have cleaner shooters. Mahtomedi is also a slightly quicker team on the floor overall, that resulted in 22 Raider turnovers to 12 for Mahtomedi. If all 10 of those extra opportunities are made, that is a 20-point swing there.

The Zephyrs had the lead the entire game and by the time the first half was over, Hastings was down by 15, 42-27. Give the Raiders credit, they came out and fought hard in the second half, logging more takeaways and even worked themselves to within 10 points with just under 5:00 left in the game. Unfortunately, the deficit was too big and the Zephyrs too much for the Raiders to mount a comeback and they fell 8363.

McVicker led Hastings in scoring with 20, Emma Bakker was right behind her with 18 and Strain recorded 17. Strain finished with 13 rebounds and Bakker grabbed eight.

The loss to Mahtomedi ended the win streak at eight, which is an absolutely fantastic run for Hastings. The loss locked Hastings out of any chance at the conference title since Mahtomedi has a two-win lead over Hastings and they hold the head-to-head tie breaker. Both teams have two conference games left on the schedule and Mahtomedi has one extra non-conference game left, so even if they lost all three games and Hastings won, the best the Raiders could get is a tie for first with Mahtomedi. The good news is, Hastings has a virtual lock on second place in the conference with both Hill-Murray and North St. Paul being three games behind Hastings with only two games left to play.

The final chance to catch the girls in action for the regular season is Friday, February 24 at 7:00 p.m. at home against Simley. Then it is on to the Section 3AAAA tournament where Hastings sits right in the middle of the section standings. First is Rosemount, then Eastview, Eagan, Hastings, Park of Cottage Grove, Jefferson, Burnsville and Apple Valley.

If the QRF rankings hold steady, Hastings will have a home playoff game against Park of Cottage Grove on March 1 at 7 p.m. As of right now, that is all up to the section committee to decide after this week is over. If history is any kind of indicator, Hastings will be seeded lower than they deserve. Regardless, the first playoff game will be March 1 at 7 p.m. at the lower seed’s court.