Lady Raiders smother Lady Bearcats

A smothering defense and a solid rebounding effort proved to be the winning combination for Sidney on Friday night.

The Lady Raiders limited Scottsbluff to just eight points through three quarters as they picked up a 39-15 victory.

"We did a really good job focusing on kind of their big three that do most of their offensive scoring for them, Chloey (Reifschneider), Zoe (Holscher) and Aly (Camacho)," said Sidney coach Tyler Shaw. "The girls did a good job. We played with extreme effort. We did a great job boxing out and limiting their second chances. I think that was one of the keys to the game, was the rebounding effort."

It was all Sidney (12-4) from the start. The Lady Raiders came out of the gate with a 7-0 run, which included treys from Kelsey Knight and Emily Mahr, to set the early tone. Janay Brauer's 3-pointer to wrap up the first quarter scoring put Sidney up 11-4, and Scottsbluff never seriously challenged the home team from that point.

Shaw said the strong start was a big boon to the Lady Raiders on Friday night.

"I think that was pretty important because you know that they play good defense as well, and we knew it was going to be a slugfest," he said.

Annalise Lecher opened the second quarter scoring with a putback layup, and Katelyn Sylvester followed that up with a putback layup just over two minutes later to put Sidney up 15-4. Mahr's layup with an assist from Jasmine Jallen with 42 seconds left in the half gave Sidney a 19-6 lead going to the break.

Although the Lady Raiders scored just eight points in the quarter, they held the Lady Bearcats (5-7) to just a pair of free throws for their entire second quarter offensive output.

"We didn't shoot overly well for us tonight, but we played good enough defense where that shooting wasn't a huge deal," Shaw said. "Hopefully we can just next week shoot the ball a little bit better but continue that same defensive effort."

Knight's layup just five seconds into the third quarter got the Lady Raiders going, and Maddi Porter's free throw gave Sidney a 22-6 lead.

Scottsbluff got its lone third quarter bucket at the 5:51 mark, ending a more-than 10-minute stretch that Sidney held the visiting team without a field goal. It was also the Lady Bearcats' only points of the quarter.

Porter's turnaround jumper in the lane at the 5:09 mark of the quarter kick-started a 14-0 run to end the frame. Brauer had a pair of treys in the run, including a bankshot with 2 seconds left in the quarter, to give Sidney a 36-8 lead.

Brauer led the Lady Raiders with 11 points, while Knight chipped in with 10.

Sidney is home this weekend for back-to-back games. The Lady Raiders host Chadron on Friday and Hershey on Saturday. Both games are set for a 5:30 p.m. tipoff.