Talking Sports: Kudos to Sidney, Peetz for efforts

Congratulations to the Sidney High School boys’ basketball players and coaches. They’re going to the show.

The Peetz Bulldogs boys’ are also alive. They’ve made it to regionals and are two wins away from earning a berth in the Colorado dance scheduled for the Budweiser Events Center in Loveland next week.

First the Raiders. They go in as the third seed with three games standing between them and a state championship. First up is sixth-seeded Scottsbluff at the Pinnacle Bank Arena one week from today at 9:45 a.m. Nebraska Panhandle Time.

I know. It sounds so familiar, so regular season, so District B-6. Scottsbluff again? But for a slightly altered rotation of the Earth or the absence of a properly timed solar flare, the Raiders would have been facing Adams Central. Somehow that seems a little more international … more worldly … more nonsense.

Never mind all that. The Raiders are going to state. The one thing the Raiders know about Scottsbluff with absolute certainty, is that they can beat them – and you can be sure Scottsbluff is just as sure they can beat Sidney. That sounds like the perfect recipe for a great basketball game. Either one is capable of making a lot of noise at state and both have a chance to go all the way.

As Raiders’ head coach Erik Kohl recently said, “Scottsbluff is as good as any team in the state if not better.”

So is Sidney.

The Raiders and Bearcats have already played on three occasions this season. How many hundreds of times they’ve played over the past century or more, I’m not sure. But I’d be willing to bet this is one of the biggest stages on which they’ve ever met – and likely the biggest.

Twice this season they met in Scottsbluff – one time was at WNCC’s Cougar Palace – with the Bearcats successfully defending their home turf both times. The Raiders won the only game played at the Cabela’s Athletic Facility. Now it’s on to a true neutral site. Hopefully a large contingent of Raiders’ fans will travel with the team. Some of that frenzied excitement from the Red Zone could be very inspiring in Lincoln. Maybe even a difference maker in a game that could be decided by a razor-thin margin.

The Pinnacle Bank Arena – home of the Nebraska Cornhuskers – is a little different than the Scottsbluff High School gym, Cougar Palace or the Cabela’s Athletic Facility. Perhaps the biggest difference, besides the magnitude of the occasion and the immense size of Pinnacle, is the location of the baskets.

High school basketball players are used to shooting against a basket with a wall behind it. At Pinnacle, there is no such reference point. It’s as if the basket is floating in mid air with hardly any depth-perception guide at all – beyond a clear backboard with honeycombed strings that dangle from an iron hoop.

Of course they’ll have an opportunity to practice on the hallowed floor. Before leaving Lincoln, however, the guys might want to have a conversation with some of the girls who played there last year. Perhaps Savanna Rosenbaum or Vanessa Riley could lend a little perspective.

After Peetz graduate Josh Fiscus played at the Pepsi Center in Denver last year for an all-star game, he said it was like shooting in an empty cornfield. But he quickly got used to it. The guys will too.

As for Peetz, they continue their bid for a berth in the Colorado state tournament on Friday afternoon. The sixth-seeded Bulldogs will meet No. 7 Flagler at Brush High School in Brush, Colo., at 1:30 p.m. The winner then faces the challenge of taking on the undefeated Arickaree/Woodlin (21-0) team at 11:30 the following morning.

It seems a fools errand to try and handicap teams that haven’t played each other based on common opponents. Well, this team beat that one and barely beat another one, so they must be this good. But based on Arickaree/Woodlin’s schedule, they don’t look invincible. Good, but not unbeatable.

Obviously, Arickaree/Woodlin has to be considered the favorite. But, if Peetz (13-9) gets by Flagler (8-13), they should feel confident they will be facing a team they can play with. Of course at this time of year the prerequisite for any team still alive – in Nebraska or Colorado – is that they must play well to advance.

As the reigning 6-man football champions of Colorado, it must be fair to say Arickaree/Woodlin has some outstanding athletes – as does Peetz. But if the Bulldogs could have found an extra field goal against Eads in the 6-man semis, who knows how history could have been changed. Perhaps the ‘Dogs will have the answer this time around.

Whatever happens, it’s already been a great basketball season. The events of the next week or more can’t change that.