DEVILS LAKE – A string of substitutions late in the fourth quarter did not dissuade the Lakota Raiders in the slightest. If anything, it encouraged them. With a thin bench, the Raiders were looking to lay down a trap against the Warwick Warriors in an attempt to go up late in the opening round of the Class B – District 7 Boys’ Basketball Tournament at Devils Lake Sportscenter Friday evening.
While the Raiders gave it a good crack, a costly miss from the line, coupled with a baseline turnover, inevitably proved to be their downfall as they faltered to Warwick, 54-52, on Feb. 25.
The loss snaps Lakota’s four-game winning streak, dating back to Feb. 10. The loss additionally places the Raiders on the consolation side of the district bracket. The Raiders will face off against Benson County to determine who moves over to the Region 4 placement round on Feb. 28.
As the fourth quarter waned, Lakota head coach Tyson Ackerman looked to play the waiting game in the fouling department.
“We had two fouls at the time, so I knew that if we fouled, we would reset the shot clock,” Ackerman said after the game. “So then, once we started fouling, we had to commit to doing that. It was one of those things where, with two, you don’t shoot bonus until seven, so we had to get a couple of fouls to get it up , So, they shot free throws. I said, trap, get it to the corner. If you don’t steal the first pass, play base defense but don’t be scared to get a little handsy and stuff like that. I thought we had a couple where we made them take timeouts. [Warwick] a timeout. We did it well.”
The pace at the start of the game proved to be much quicker. After the Warriors started the game with a strong 7-2 start, the Raiders responded with a 12-5 run to give the latter a slim 14-12 lead at the end of the first quarter. The back-to-back pace of play trend continued into the second quarter as the Raiders held a two-point lead at halftime (30-28).
Substitutions on Warwick’s end, varying from length and size to stamina and shooting ability, helped find the holes in a Raider bench that came into the game with a bit of an injury issue.
“I played six guys tonight, and one [Zach Gibson] sprained his ankle on Tuesday, so it was one of those things where my bench is what it is,” Ackerman said. “When I put in my two big guys, you have to match up with that, and if you put two littles in there, we have to punish you for it. But, I don’t think we did a good job of making them [Warwick] do that. I put Jaxon Baumgarn in there because he guarded him with a smaller defender, so he ate it up. Then, make them change. Force their hand to change their defense based on who they can guard and who they can’t guard out there.”
Six separate timeouts with less than two minutes to go allowed both teams ample time to draw up the plan of attack. Then, with 25 seconds to go, a costly Zach Gibson free-throw miss sapped away by any chance at a tie game. The mishap, coupled with a baseline turnover from Isaak Anthony, inevitably gave the Raiders a 54-52 score they could not overcome.
“I think we didn’t execute late,” Ackerman said. “We missed some free throws [and] that type of stuff that put us in that situation.”
Dwight Hunt came off the Warrior bench to score a team-high 21 points. Baumgarn, meanwhile, led all Raider scorers with 22 points.
Contact John Crane via email (jcrane@gannett.com) or Twitter @johncranesports)
