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The Raiders’ varsity basketball team has been getting strong results from their offensive attack as the team has gotten more cohesive as the season has progressed. Last week, they continued their highly effective offense with two more impressive performances. They crossed the 60-point threshold twice and even reached the 70-point mark on the way to splitting their two games of the week. They lost a close one to Tidehaven on Tuesday, Jan 3 and won a blowout against Palacios on the following Friday.
Vs Tidehaven, L, 60-65 Rice fell just short against Tidehaven despite reaching 60 points for the fourth time this season. The Raiders had won every game in which they scored 60 points or more entering this game. The game against Tidehaven was a hotly contested matchup where neither team could create much of a lead. Interestingly, each quarter ended with fivepoint margin between the teams, regardless of who was in the lead.
The Raiders started the game on fire, punching in a 20-point scoring effort in the opening period to create an early lead. The two teams would go on to tie in two of the remaining three quarters as the game stayed tight throughout. However, a difficult second quarter undermined the Raiders efforts and erased the lead they had created in the first quarter. After Rice lost the second period by a 21-11 margin, each team scored 12 points in the third and 17 points in the fourth to finish the game with the five-point margin of deficit the Raiders went into halftime with.
Jalen Porch’s hot shooting helped him lead the team in scoring with 18 points. The lengthy Jon Woods followed behind with 14 points of his own, whi le D’Neriyan Ful ler chipped in 12 points to round out the top three scorers for Rice.
Vs Palacios, W, 71-29 The Raiders came out with what could be considered their strongest game on both ends of the court against the Palacios Sharks. They dominated from the opening tip as Palacios never threatened to make this competition competitive.
Rice’s 71 points marked their best scoring game of the season, and their first time reaching the 70-point threshold. They were unstoppable defensively as well, forcing the second-lowest total by an opponent this season. After a restricting effort in the first half, the Raiders tightened the screws even more in the second half as the Sharks offense struggled.
Jon Woods finished this game as the leading scorer, picking up 16 points for Rice. However, it seemed like everybody on the court was hot for the Raiders as five other players scored seven or more points. Dyren Johnson was the second-leading scorer with 14 and Devron Bennett finished with 12 as the final double-digit scorer for the Raiders. Bennett’s brother, Robert, finished with nine points, Jalen Porch finished with eight points and D’Neriyan Fuller finished with seven points to contribute to a high-scoring performance.
