The 7/8 Wagner boys travelled to Platte to take on the Platte-Geddes Black Panthers for a pair of basketball games on Thursday. In the first game, the B team jumped out to 4-2 lead after the first quarter, but found themselves down by 3 at half by a score of 9-6. They made a run in the second half and had some really good looks at the basketball, but the shots just wouldn’t fall for them. In the end, they fell by a score of 18-13. Leading the way in scoring was Shea Kjeldgaard with 6, followed by Frank Soukup with 3, and Leighton Carda and Johnny Redlightning rounded out the scoring with 2 each.

The 8th grade game followed with two evenly matched squads. Last year as 7th graders these 2 teams split their season games, so we knew that it was going to be a challenge going in. The first quarter saw an even game as the Raiders led 6-5 after the first and maintained that lead into halftime with the score being 10-9. After trading baskets in the third, Platte-Geddes tied the score at 16-16 heading to the 4th quarter. The Raiders had some really good looks at the basket but couldn’t convert. Finally, a three by Deshawn Sully gave the Raiders the lead back. A basket late in the 4th pulled P-G within 1. Again, the Raiders had some open shots that wouldn’t drop and P-G had the ball with the chance to take the lead and they hit an open three to go up by 2 with under 15 seconds left. The Raiders had 2 shot attempts in the final seconds but couldn’t get them to fall and the Raiders ended up losing 19-21. This was their first loss of the season and dropped their record to 3-1. Leading the way in scoring was Deshawn Sully with 11, followed by Preston McFayden with 5 and Parker Petry chipped in 3. The Raiders next game is on Thursday, January 26 at Scotland.