Sidney fends off feisty Bulldogs

A talented group of class C2 basketball players from Bridgeport invaded Cabela's Athletic Facility on Friday night to try their hand against one of the panhandle's most dangerous Class B opponents.

Although the Bulldogs (11-3) fought Sidney to a near draw after one half of play, Sidney wore down their guests the rest of the way, to claim a 44-34 victory.

For Sidney (11-3) their school record winning streak reached seven. The Raiders have also won 10 of their last 11, with their only blemish during that time at the hands of Laramie in the Cabela's Holiday Shootout earlier this month.

As for the winning streak it has become a subject of conversation relegated to the past. Having been first broken at six games, the Raiders players have now moved on to focusing on the task at hand each game night.

"There was some talk about it last week before we broke it," said Paxton Ehler. "But that's in the past now. We just concern ourselves with what's in front of us. We have a tough stretch coming up and we want to take that on one at a time."

A free throw and a field goal by Tyler Wintholz helped the Raiders jump out to an early 7-0 lead. After a pair of free throws from Ehler and a driving, reverse layup by Lane Harvey it began to look as though Sidney might be in for an easy night.

But Bridgeport had other ideas.

Two points from the Bulldogs' Kaleb DeCora and a couple more from Jason Amateis could only be answered by a free throw by Jake Sager to end the first period. The Bulldogs comeback run was given another boost 25 seconds into the the second quarter when DeCora nailed a three pointer from the left side.

Though Cutter O'Connell responded, celebrating his 17th birthday with a three of his own for an 11-7 Raiders lead, the 'Dogs were soon able to catch the car they'd been chasing. O'Connell's trey was followed by a Jamie Gonzalez layup and a three-point play by John Pappas. The 5-0 run put Sidney in comeback mode at 12-11 in favor of Bridgeport.

The Raiders deficit reached 3 when Gonzalez struck again.

"They're a pretty intense team. They have some pretty big guys," said Sager who's often matched against the biggest of the opposition. "We wanted to run our offense. We didn't want to finesse them. We wanted to pound them."

With Bridgeport having some success keeping the Raiders from penetrating for easy layups, Harvey took aim from the top of the key to tie the game at 14-14 with a three. After an answer by Bridgeport, Sidney finished the frame with a 2-point edge after contributions from Logan Lewis and Harvey. Both came from close in, as Lewis returned an offensive rebound and Harvey made a hard baseline drive for two.

The score at halftime was 18-16 for Sidney.

"Once again we came out in the second half and took care of business," said Ehler.

Lucas Rosenbaum, Lewis and Sager showed strength on the offensive glass as each returned a rebound through the hoop to start the third period. The only Bridgeport response was a Gonzalez free throw.

After the 6-1 exchange, the Raiders later struck for 6 uninterupted points. Rosenbaum again started the run when he converted on a court-length pass from Harvey. When Ehler and O'Connell tacked on for the next 4, Sidney's advantage had reached 11 at 30-19.

The Bulldogs, however, managed to trim 3 points from their deficit before the end of the period.

"In the second half we got some pretty good posts and some good ball work between us," said O'Connell. "We're better teammates now than we were earlier in the year. We know each other's tendencies and we work well together because of that."

Wintholz fed Lewis with a nice inbounds pass and later made a court-length drive for a couple more early in the fourth. But the final eight minutes was largely a give-and-take affair. The closest the Bulldogs could get was 6 points at 34-28 three minutes in.

Ehler twice struck from beyond the bend in the final frame to frustrate a pair of Bridgeport comeback attempts. When Ehler dropped in his second three, Sidney had established their largest lead of the game at 44-30 before settling for the 10-point win.

The Raiders next assignment will be Tuesday evening in Sterling with boys only. A sophomore game will begin the action at 4 p.m. The game was originally scheduled for Jan. 25.

Boys Basketball

Sidney 44

Bridgeport 34