The Lindsay Thurber senior girl’s basketball team knew taking on the number-one ranked Raymond Comets would be no easy challenge.
They took that challenge head-on and despite putting up their best effort they were defeated by the Comets 90-57 in the quarterfinals at the ASAA 4A girl’s basketball provincial championships.
The Comets showed how good they are on Thursday night at the Gary W. Harris Canada Games Centre shooting the lights out, especially from three-point territory.
“You can’t just guard the three or guard the drive because they do both so well,” said Raiders head coach Kathy Lalor.
“We tried to change a few things up in the second half and I thought we played a little bit better… We just tried to put a little bit more pressure on them and I think we were almost even scoring in the third quarter but we needed that earlier in the game.”
The last time they played Raymond earlier in the season they lost by 30 points but Lalor thought they were more improved this time around. Offensively, Raymond just has too many weapons.
“They’re a really good team. When you have five girls who shoot the three as well as they do you can’t just stop one person… We controlled the boards pretty well in the second half and you know we just wanted to play the best game we could.”
The Raiders will now play fifth-seeded Magrath at 3 p.m. on Friday at Lindsay Thurber High School. If they win they’ll get a chance to play for fifth place on Saturday morning.
“I’m pretty happy with the effort tonight,” she added. “We had a slow start and they were just killing us with threes. They’re just a really, really good team.
Earlier on Thursday took down ninth-seeded Spruce Grove 39-32 at Lindsay Thurber to advance to the quarter-finals.
Despite not shooting well for most of the game, the Raider flipped a switch offensively down the stretch to secure the victory. Forward McKinley Penninga led the way with 13 points followed by 12 points from Amelia Roberts.
Also on the girl’s side, the Hunting Hills Lightning lost to Raymond on Thursday morning 84-23. With the loss, the Lightning were moved to the consolation bracket where they’ll face Spruce Grove on Friday at 9 a.m. at Lindsay Thurber High School.