Sidney falls to Scottsbluff in district finals

OGALLALA - A big second quarter run for Scottsbluff was the difference in the District B6 championship game against Sidney on Tuesday night.

The Bearcats started the second quarter on a 12-3 run and used that spurt to roll to a 51-36 win over the Raiders in the district title game. Sidney started the game strong, but Scottsbluff roared back with a stellar performance in the final three quarters to win.

"Scottsbluff is so good. The thing with those guys, if you want to have a chance to play with them, they're so talented, multifaceted on the perimeter and down low, you have to play almost a perfect game," Sidney coach Erik Kohl said. "Our first quarter was really good on both sides of the ball. And then the second quarter, we started to get out of sync and started to let them dictate the tempo of the game. When you do that against them, you're not going to win.

"When we played them at our place, for probably 28 minutes, we played great basketball. I don't know how much we played great basketball here tonight. Maybe 16 minutes? It's a credit to Scottsbluff. They're dang good. They're going to be the one seed at state for a reason."

The first quarter was all Raiders early on as they played well in all facets of the game en route to a 11-4 lead with 1:34 left in the quarter. The Raiders opened strong with a Brady Radcliffe trey, followed by baskets from Radcliffe, Ryan Birner and Tyler Wintholz. Free throws from Wintholz and Mitchell Porter put Sidney up 11-4.

In the final minute and a half of the opening quarter, the Bearcats roared back. Scottsbluff answered with an 8-0 run to end the quarter with a 12-11 lead. Andru Kuxhausen's layup with 5.7 seconds left tied the game, and his free throw on the same play gave the Bearcats the lead.

Sidney briefly retook the lead early in the second quarter, as Cutter O'Connell drained a trey in the corner off a Wintholz screen for a 14-12 lead with 6:56 left until halftime.

It was all Scottsbluff after that. The Bearcats responded with a 9-0 run, which included treys from Kuxhausen and Evan Hughes, as they stormed out to a 24-14 lead with 3:38 left until halftime. They held a 29-18 advantage at the break.

"That's the thing with those guys, when they jump on a team, the game is over," Kohl said. "That was why, the last time we played them, they jumped on us early and then we kind of said, 'Hey, we're not going to play this style anymore.' We changed it. And tonight, we didn't do that. Scottsbluff is one heck of a basketball team, and they deserved to win tonight. They were a lot better than us today."

Sidney struggled from the field in the second quarter, hitting just a trio of shots from the field.

"We settled. We didn't make enough passes, and then defensively, we didn't do our keys," Kohl said. "We didn't make sure to hedge hard, and they turned the corner and got a lot of penetration. When those guys can drive on you and kick, man, they are unbelievable."

The Bearcats opened the second half on an 8-0 run, but the Raiders wouldn't let them pull away. Sidney responded with a 6-0 run of its own, with two points each from Zach Means, Wintholz and Porter.

Although Sidney never substantially cut into the Scottsbluff lead in the second half, the Raiders never quit.

"It was a fun challenge, it was good for us," Kohl said. "We learned a lot about ourselves. I'm glad our guys kept fighting til the end."

O'Connell led the Raiders offensively with eight points, while Wintholz added seven points. Birner and Porter chipped in with six points each.

Although Sidney lost Tuesday night, the season continues. The Raiders earned a wild card berth in the state tournament as the fourth seed. They open with fifth-seeded Aurora at 8:45 p.m. CST on Thursday, March 10, in Lincoln.