The Lady Raiders traveled to Ethan to take on the Rustlers in girls basketball action last Monday. Wagner would have to polish off the rust after the 1st quarter as they would trail 13-14. Ethan would use a slow pace on offense to lull the Raiders to sleep and then attack the rim in the waning seconds of the shot clock. The Raiders would clamp down on defense a bit and take a 26-22 lead into halftime. Wagner would crank up it’s defense in the second half and out score Ethan 33-14 to win the game 59-36. Wagner would go 25-47 from the floor for 44% while the Rustlers would shoot 12-36 for 33%. Wagner would out rebound its opponent 33-22. The Raiders would commit 13 turnovers compared to 18 from the Rustlers. Ashlyn Koupal would lead all scorers with 32 points, 7 boards, 2 assists, and 2 blocks. Emma Yost would finish with 12 points 9 boards, 5 assists, and 2 blocks. Lydia Yost would add 6 points, 3 boards, and 4 assists. Macy Koupal would finish with 5 points, 3 boards, 3 steals, and a block. Eve Zephier would tally 4 points, 4 boards, 3 assists, and 3 steals. Shalayne Nagel would lead the Raiders in assists with 7, grab 6 boards, and come away with 3 steals. “Defensively we did a pretty good job the first half. We gave up a couple offensive rebounds on free throws where they got the buzzer beater at half and then a few other buckets. The second half we got after them with pressure and were up in their face. Offensively we just weren’t ourselves to start he game We had some errand passes. We need to just get into the offense and get reversals and be a little more patient getting the inside outside movement. Once we started doing that scoring became much easier. We didn’t shoot the ball well from the perimeter so we have to stay confident and be ready to knock down those shots when given the opportunities, but most of those came from guard to guard, they weren’t our normal inside outside passes. This also stems back to our Vermillion game. Just something we need to get back to. Transition wise we did a much better job of running the floor in our lanes and were very productive of getting points out of it. Ethan is a good young team that has a lot of potential. They played hard and gave a us a battle the first half. Our girls did a great job on the counter effort the second half to pull away.”

The JV won 35-34 in sudden death in double-overtime on a free throw from Hayden Fischer. Cadence Bernie led all scorers with 13 points. Braxton Nedved finished with 6. Aubrey Medricky and Hayden Fischer each added 5. Aniyah Bruguier-Fields finished with 4 and Hazel Jensen 2.