The Wagner 7th and 8th grade boys basketball teams were in action on Saturday, January 21, competing in the Wagner Basketball Boosters Tournament. Stats for the 7th grade games were not kept. They opened the tournament with Kimball-White Lake and cruised to a 45-15 victory. The semifinal game, the Raiders were matched up with Mt Vernon/Plankinton. The Raiders again won the game by double digits and advanced to the championship game against a team from Yankton. After falling behind early in the first half the Raiders made a run to take a lead at halftime. Yankton came out in the second half and regained the lead and pushed it up to 7 points. A furious late rally by the Raiders including a 3-pointer at the buzzer by Steven Peters tied the game at the end of regulation to force overtime. In a back-and-forth battle in overtime, the Raiders had a shot again with a last second heave from halfcourt, but it missed, and the Raiders were defeated in overtime by a score of 34-33. The 7th graders record is now at 3-2 on the season.

After a team dropped out late in the week, Wagner entered another team in the 7th grade division as well. The second team faced off with Beresford in their first game. The Raiders led for most of the first half, but a basket by Beresford gave them a 2 point lead at the half. The Raiders were never able to overcome the deficit as they were defeated 19-12. In their second game, the Raiders face Kimball-White Lake and used some defensive pressure to get a big lead in the game as they cruised to a double digit victory. That win set them up in the semifinals against Yankton. They battled hard and kept the game close at half, but some excellent outside shooting from Yankton saw them pull away in the second half for the victory. Leading the way for the Raiders was Winston Little Moon, Beau Otte, and Paxton Kuhlman.

The 8th graders started the tourney off with a game against Scotland. The Raiders jumped out to a huge halftime lead and never looked back as they pulled away for a 48-9 victory. Leading scorers were Carlos Galindo with 15, Jesse Zephier with 8, Javian Pesicka with 7, Dominic Doom with 5, Leon Fields and Benny Greger with 4, AJ Kotab with 3 and Trasin Dilts with 2. In their second game of the tournament, the Raiders played Sanborn Central/Woonsocket. After the teams battled back-andforth for the first few minutes for 7-7 tie, the Raiders took control from there. The pushed their halftime lead to 15 pointes and cruised in the second half for a 6221 victory. No stats were kept for this game. In their semifinal game, the Raiders face Tripp-Delmont/ Armour. The Raiders took control early in the game and built a 20 point lead at the half. It was more of the same in the second half as the Raider prevailed by a score of 54-31. Leading scorers were Carlos Galindo with 18, Jesse Zephier with 12, Javian Pesicka with 10, Dominic Doom with 8, Benny Greger with 4 and Leon Fields with 2. In the championship game against Andes Central/Dakota Christian, the Raiders got off to a slower start than their other games. They were still able to build a 10 point lead at the half. They picked up their defensive intensity in the second half, which led to some easy baskets as they Raiders pulled away for the victory by a score of 49-25 winning the 8th grade tournament championship. Leading scorers were Javian Pesicka with 13, Carlos Galindo and Benny Greger each with 12, and Jesse Zephier and Dominic Doom each chipped in 6. The Raiders improved their record to 7-0 on the season.