The Metro East Conference (MEC) is stacked with solid teams on the girls’ basketball side of things, and Hastings is one of those top teams. Hill-Murray sits at the top with an 11-5 overall record, 6-0 in the MEC. Mahtomedi is second at 13-3 overall and a 6-1 record in the MEC. Hastings is in third with an overall record of 10-5 and a 6-1 record in the MEC.
Jan. 10 was the start of the new streak with a 69-45 win at North St. Paul as recapped in last week’s edition. The game for this week was at Buffalo where Hastings won a defensive battle 51-49. Hastings then went to Tartan to take on a smaller and younger Titans team coming out of that with a 74-42 victory where Haley Strain joined another illustrious 1,000 club.
At Buffalo
The story of the game at Buffalo was defense and opportunities. The defenses of both teams flustered each other limiting the opportunities each had to shoot and several of the shot opportunities simply did not fall. Both teams had only two players reach double digits for points. Hastings was bothered early and often by the Buffalo defense scoring only 22 points in the first half. Buffalo took a five-point lead into the intermission.
Hastings came out of the break with a plan, and it worked. They slowly chipped away at the Buffalo lead eventually winning 51-49. Led by Strain in the paint and McVicker on the floor, The Raiders flipped the script on Buffalo holding them to 22 second half points while scoring 29.
McVicker led Hastings with 17 points while nabbing six rebounds. Strain led the rebound fight with 18 while scoring 12 points. Strain’s 18 rebounds also put her just 10 away from 1,000 career rebounds. She already logged 1,000 points just a few weeks prior. Kate Ruder scored seven with two rebounds, Kayleigh Giesen tallied five points and one rebound and Rachel Notch scored four with two rebounds.
At Tartan
As previously noted, the Titans are a team that is not only on the smaller side, but also a young team with only a few seniors. It should be safe to say, Tartan is what Hastings was three years ago, a team with talent that just needs some time to mature and be together as a team.
Hastings dominated the game from start to finish which made it easy for fans to focus on an individual accolade. Haley Strain entered the competition 10 rebounds away from 1,000. The girls knew that Strain would get it during this game, and they just played their game. No one tried to force it, they were focused on winning as a team while helping their teammate reach another milestone.
The Raiders entered the intermission up by 19 points, 47-28 and Strain logged five rebounds in the first half. Some fans seemed to wonder if she was going to get it that night simply because of the large lead they had built up tends to cause Head Coach Rick Tavernier to switch gears and give his bench players game experience.
He did begin to do that by sprinkling in a bench player here and there, but he kept the starters out for the first part of the second half to ensure the victory. That gave Strain a chance to get to 1,000. Time kept ticking away and she was down to four, then three and with 15 minutes left in the game, she was at 999.
Strain is one of those teammates who is all about the team, and she is not a fan of the spotlight. Not that she is shy, it is more that she just wants the focus on the team. So, with 13:04 left on the clock, Haley Strain joined the 1,000-rebound club with the Raiders. One neat piece to the story is, one of the referees that was working the game where she scored her 1,000 point was also referring this game and he and his partners executed the assignment perfectly. The opposing team’s photographer was on their offensive end of the court, and she agreed to help try to capture the milestone, so, both ends of the court were covered and the officials did everything they could to stay wide and allow the capture of the photo. They get it, high school athletics is about the kids, a huge thank you needs to go to all of them for doing things right.
The game was paused, the Raiders cleared the bench, swarmed Strain and the crowd roared to honor the work put into another 1,000-club entry and as quickly as the girls celebrated, they went back to work to win a MEC game.
That is when more and more younger Raiders hit the floor. 15 players in all logged minutes against Tartan with nearly everyone contributing in some way. Hastings finished the game with running time and a 74-42 win.
McVicker had a career day with eight steals that contributed to a team leading 31 points. It felt like she had significantly more steals and breakaways, every time you looked, she was making a breakaway layup. Strain tallied 15 total rebounds to put her at 1,005 for her career while she logged 11 points. Jillian McTague nabbed two rebounds enroute to 10 points, Ruder added eight points to her season total and Giesen scored five. Violet Schult, Brooke Mace and Notch each scored three.
Up next
The girls will make a couple longer road trips, first they travel to Kasson-Mantorville on Jan. 23 for a 7:00 p.m. tip. Then they head to Mahtomedi for a potential shot to move into second in the MEC. That game is scheduled for a 6:30 p.m. tip on Jan. 28. They return home to take on Two Rivers on Jan. 31 also at 6:30 p.m. The Raiders have already played both Mahtomedi and Two Rivers having won both games. They defeated Mahtomedi in nail-biting fashion 56-54 and two rivers 69-56.