By Bruce Karnick

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The Raider girls basketball team saw its season come to an end at the hands of section rival Park of Cottage Grove. Hastings entered the Section 3AAAA playoffs as the sixth seed, pitting them against the Wolfpack. The trip north on Highway 61 was a difficult one, with the Raiders’ leading scorer, senior Lilly Nuytten, nursing a sore shoulder, and one of the other top scorers this season, Maggie Schlottman, was on the bench with a season-ending injury.

Coach Sheri McLeod had put together a different kind of game plan for the previous two games. What kind of scheming would she do for this game? The previous meeting witnessed the Raiders losing by 41 points. with Park having three players in double figures. Justine Jameson recorded 24, Tori Henderson finished with 19 and Emma Ambroz added 12 to combine for 53 of the 71 total points scored. In the section game, those same three scored 12, 10, and 8 respectively for a total of 30, a 23-point difference. Coach McLeod’s defensive strategy worked, slowing down the three big scorers from the first game.

The game started out evenly-matched with the typical back and forth basketball. Park eventually went on a run later in the half and took a 26-19 lead to halftime.

“Once the girls calmed down, and they slowed down the transition a little bit, things started to work as we planned,” explained McLeod at the half. “We need to make sure we’re slipping underneath their screen. They’re sending the screen but they’re really just sending a person through. They’re not giving it to her because they’re looking to kick it out. So, we have to slip underneath that screen to help. Offensively we just need to be a little bit more patient. Our offense is working, but we’re rushing the shot so that we don’t get it. We just need to stay focused. We’re still in it, we still have some time. What we’ve got to do is, just get busy. And the shots have to fall.”

That last sentence was key. The girls were taking good shots, they were simply bouncing out. The Raiders shot 42.2% from two-point land and 36.4 from beyond the arc. The good news from that standpoint is free throws were at 71.4%, a major improvement over the previous game.

With Schlottman out, that opened play time for the younger girls especially with players getting in foul trouble early. Nuytten was the only senior on the floor, and she was the leading scorer with 21 points, plus she had 13 rebounds. Emma Bakker scored 12 with four rebounds, Hailey Strain scored four with two rebounds, McVicker and Lindsey Wagner each scored three and had four rebounds. Rachel Notch scored four with three rebounds.

Park extended its lead to 10 early in the second half, but the Raiders never gave up, chipping away at the lead. Once the lead was down to two, Hastings kept the game close the rest of the second half until late in the game. Both McVicker and Nuytten fouled out of the game late, and shots for the Raiders were not falling. The second half had both teams score 28 each, but the first half deficit was simply too much to overcome. Despite their best efforts to contain Park, the Raiders fell 54-47.

After the game, Coach McLeod was pleased with how her girls responded, “One of my captains, Emma [Bakker], said ‘You know, that has been the best basketball we have played all year, those last five games.’ So, there is nothing to hang their heads about. I told them, Yes, it stinks. So, now you know what we’ve got to do over the summer to get that work in.”

The Raiders graduate Schlottman and Nuytten, two big losses on and off the court. Both seniors are quality people who care and work hard, and that is tough to teach. On the flip side, the good news is, they only lose two seniors meaning the younger players have had a chance to get plenty of experience and will be returning with a year of playing under Coach McLeod.

Before heading home, Coach McLeod discussed how she was going to miss the two seniors but that she felt lucky to have had that one year with them, and she was excited to have her younger players for a few more years. Hastings has no juniors on the roster meaning she should have the remaining players for three seasons total. Discussions around the younger players and the training plans the coach has in place for them for the off-season gave clear indications that Mc-Leod is going to be a Raider for the foreseeable future. That is a great thing for this program.

Lindsey Wagner holds off a Park defender as she sets up the Raider offense. Wagner had three points and four rebounds on the night.Photo by Bruce Karnick