No. 4 Raiders dominate

By JIM BASTIAN

Journal Sports Writer

NICOLLET -- There were a lot of reasons why the Nicollet Raiders ran their Valley Conference North record to 2-0 and 8-1 overall in a 61-45 victory over Maple River Monday night in girls basketball action.

First, they forced 26 Eagle turnovers. Second, Maple River (1-11, 0-3) hit on only 12 of 26 shots from the field. And third, the Raiders, who will travel to Garden City Friday night for a meeting with LCWM, held a 35-24 rebounding edge.

But the biggest reason is that Nicollet is just a very good basketball team.

Cara Wright led Nicollet with a 14 points as 13 different Raiders scored. Alison Brandt led the Raiders on the boards with seven rebounds.

Haley Russow paced Maple River with a game-high 18 points.

"We came out and played pretty hard to begin with," commented Raider head coach Kevin Christenson. "We had too many turnovers and missed too many easy shots. But I liked our going to the basket and going to the rim. That was a big part of it."

The Raiders would jump out of the blocks taking an 11-2 lead midway through the first quarter with Wright leading the way. The senior canned a free throw, stole the ball for a basket and then her blocked shot resulted in a Marta Peters' basket for that nine-point lead.

Sarah Brown's basket off the ninth Eagle turnover of the first quarter and Melissa Cords' putback basket lifted the Raiders to an 18-7 lead late in that first quarter as the Raiders ran away.

A Cords' basket coupled with a basket and free throw by Brandt gave the Raiders a 25-10 lead with just over five minutes remaining in the first half.

It was a quarter that saw the Raiders' defense allow Maple River only one field goal and one 3-point shot as the Eagles hit just one of seven shots from the field while hitting their only trey attempt of the quarter.

But the Raiders were guilty of fouls.

Maple River was into the free-throw bonus situation with three minutes gone in that quarter as they hit six of 12 charity tosses.

That foul problem was a concern for Christenson. "We were guilty of instead of going straight up (to block a shot) were went up and reach over the top," he said. "We got called on a bunch of those. We wanted to get the game in some kind of a flow and it just didn't."

But it wasn't just the Raiders who were guilty of fouling as the teams combined for 25 first-half whistle stops.

Nicollet continued the domination, leading 39-19 at halftime and increasing it to a 53-29 lead after three quarters and coasted to the win.

MAPLE RIVER 8 11 10 16--45

NICOLLET 20 19 14 18--61

MAPLE RIVER (45): H. Russow 18, Schutt 6, K. Russow 6, FitzSimmons 6, Massop 3, DeWirtz 3, Caven 2, Klunder 1.

NICOLLET (61): Wright 14, Brandt 6, Aldrich 6, Cords 6, Brown 5, Peters 4, Kettner 4, Loula 4, Koppendrayer 3, Truebenbach 3, Vulcan 2, Mettler 2, Christenson 2.