The YRHS Raiders senior boys鈥� basketball team made the nearly half hour trip to Melville this past weekend looking to open the 2015 portion of their schedule on the right foot.
They did just that, handing the host Melville Cobras a 63-49 loss on Friday afternoon to move to 1-0 in the tournament despite playing a game in which they struggled at times to knock off the rust that had accumulated over the last month. 鈥淵eah, I think there was some rust for sure in the first game,鈥� offered Raiders head coach Jason Payne. 鈥淚t was kind of scrambly at times. We actually hadn鈥檛 played since the second weekend in December so really we just needed games period to kind of get our legs back and get used to playing in games again.鈥�
Payne then gave credit where he felt it was due, commending the Cobras for a well-played game. 鈥淔ull credit to Melville,鈥� offered Payne. 鈥淭hey played a good game against us and their kids played really hard.鈥�
If the rust was present in Game Two then it wasn鈥檛 there for long as the Raiders ran roughshod over the Kamsack Spartans, issuing Kamsack an 82-25 beat down.
The final game of the tournament pitted the Raiders against their Yorkton brethren the Sacred Heart Saints. Both teams took a 2-0 record into the final, however only one team would be able to say they were undefeated at tournament鈥檚 end.
That team was the Raiders, who, led by the sharp shooting of Nick Payne and Tyson Black, pulled away from the Saints late in the fourth quarter to give the Raiders a convincing 66-46 victory. 鈥淚t was nice to see Nick Payne and Tyson Black knock down some threes because they鈥檝e been working hard on those,鈥� suggested Payne, adding that the entire team has been focusing on improving their shooting skills. 鈥淲e鈥檝e been working really hard in practice on our shooting and our fundamentals and we saw, especially in that game against Sacred, some of the hard work start to come to fruition and that, I think more than anything, gives us a sense of accomplishment that the work we鈥檙e doing is starting to pay off.鈥�
Next action
The YRHS Raiders senior boys鈥� basketball team will be back in action on the final week of January as they co-host the fifth annual York City Classic with the Sacred Heart Saints.
Both the Saints and Raiders will welcome ten other teams from around the province for what has become one of the most entertaining high school basketball tournaments around.
